


Running From Snow

by EllanaSan



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Romance, actual snow, can you tell I'm crap at summary, canon AU, lots of snow, not the president
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-05 08:12:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 44,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3112508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllanaSan/pseuds/EllanaSan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At twenty-four, eight years after he won the Second Quarter Quell, Haymitch lives a quiet solitary life in District Twelve. His days are all the same : waking up nursing a hangover, getting steadily drunker, trying to forget... His days are all the same until the morning he finds a mysterious Capitol girl in his bed. Then he finds out it may be time to start running again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I’m back with another chaptered hayffie story !  
> So this story takes place 16 years before the events of the Hunger Games and, as you can probably tell from the summary, is an AU. It was actually written a while ago – well before I wrote the zombies AU – so the English, the style and the characters might be a little different from what I write now. I hope you will like it anyway.  
> As usual thanks to Akachankami who made this readable and who made two very beautiful banners for that story. You can see them on my tumblr at Ellanainthetardis.  
> Updates will take place on every Sunday. Please let me know what you think, reviews make my day =)

The house was cold when Haymitch woke up. His legs were on the couch, his back on the ground… It wasn’t difficult to understand how he ended up in this predicament, the empty bottles of liquor surrounding him like corpses were a good enough explanation. He stayed in that position for a while, despite the fact that it wasn’t really comfortable, watching the rays of pale light the rising sun was projecting on the ceiling.

At only twenty-four, his life sometimes seemed like an endless repetition of the same day.

It had been eight years since he won the Quarter Quell, approximately seven years since Chaff convinced him that it was better to be wasted all the time than to endure the bad memories and the way some Capitol bought them like cattle for their own private enjoyment… It had been approximately seven years since he hadn’t woken up plagued by a hangover.

Every day he spent in District Twelve was the same : he got up nursing a headache, he grabbed a change of clothes – if he had anything clean left – he rummaged around for something to eat, he went down to the Hob to hunt for more alcohol; sometimes if he was feeling particularly adventurous he went to the dirtiest – but only – tavern in District Twelve and then he went back home or passed out on the way there if he couldn’t make it.

Most people didn’t talk to him and he didn’t talk to anyone if he could avoid it. He felt lonely more often than not but he preferred to be left alone. Alone was better. He would take alone over whatever the Reaping brought each year. Not only did he have to watch kids die – kids, he often passed by everyday in the streets – but he also had to bear the utmost ridiculous fits of temper from District Twelve’s escort and _then_ he had to smile and pretend to like it when Capitol monkeys decided they wanted him for a night.

The house was very cold, it must have been snowing again.

There had only been two inches the day before which wasn’t that bad for a winter in Twelve, but if it went on like that, he would get snowed in. He probably should make sure he had enough food and, above all, _liquor_ for a few days. He sighed and let his legs fall off the couch before propping himself up on the coffee table to get up. He stretched but the throbbing pain in his back refused to go away which was just _great_ – all he needed to brave the day, really.

He dragged his feet to the fireplace and started a fire, figuring he’d better stock on some wood too while he was at it. That meant he’d have to get out and that meant… How long had he been wearing those clothes? Two… Three days? He reeked of booze. The whole house reeked of booze, though, but he could actually smell it on himself so he knew it was bad… That and sweat and… _other things_. He needed a shower. Was there any hot water left? – it would be just his luck if there wasn’t and given how his day had started…

The stairs creaked under his weight as he made his way upstairs, he could have fixed that years ago but he liked the noise. The extreme silence in the house got to him sometimes.

He stumbled in his bedroom, intending to grab whatever clean shirt he had left, when the sight waiting for him made him freeze on the spot.

There was a girl in his bed.

Strawberry blond tousled curls sprawled on his pillow, his not-so-fresh sheets bundled in her small fist, a leg clad into shapeless baggy black pants thrown over the covers… She looked tiny and frail. She looked exactly like how he would have pictured fairies in one of those stupid tales for children – if fairies had been wearing that kind of clothes – or princesses maybe. Wasn’t there a story about a cursed sleeping princess? He didn’t remember. That wasn’t the only thing he didn’t remember.

He had absolutely _no_ _idea_ where she came from.

Did he pick her up at the tavern the night before? She wasn’t one of Betha’s girls, that was for sure. They weren’t as pretty or as young as that one was. Speaking of which, she _did_ look pretty young. He took a step closer, trying to decide how old she was, when her eyes flew open. Blue eyes. Sapphire-blue. She was beautiful. Not the kind of women you found in the Seam. In town maybe. A merchant’s daughter…

“Please, tell me you’re at least eighteen.”  

He couldn’t _for the life of him_ remember going out the night before or hooking up with anyone but he knew it didn’t mean anything. It had happened before. If she wasn’t of age… It would be a new low for him.

The second her eyes fell on him, she bolted from the bed and flattened herself against the furthest wall, breathing heavily. That’s when he actually saw her whole face for the first time. There was an ugly bruise on her right cheek, it spread from the jaw to her eye. Something resembling lead dropped in his stomach. He stepped closer but she only pressed further against the wall, obviously scared. He stopped and slowly raised his hands in a peaceful gesture.

_What on earth_ happened the previous night?

“Did I do that?” he asked, pointing at her face.

Her eyes were wild as she shook her head no. “Please, I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone was living here.”

His relief at not being responsible for her injury was short-lived. It was soon replaced by annoyance at dealing with an intruder.

“Well, you thought wrong.” He couldn’t help but notice even her voice sounded unusual, soft and yet high-pitched at some moments. The intonation, the accent… She wasn’t from around there. “Are you from the Capitol?” It was an idiotic question. What would a Capitol girl do in his bedroom in Twelve? There _were_ some crazy admirers but most of those wouldn’t have looked as terrified as she did to face their favorite victor…

She shook her head again. “I will go. I won’t come back. I’m sorry.”

He had enough on his plate without worrying about a strange blonde who came out of nowhere. His back was killing him, he had food and alcohol to buy, and wood to take in from the shed… And yet he couldn’t actually brush the bruise on her face away… She looked slightly older awake than asleep. He would give her around eighteen, twenty at most. What kind of troubles could an eighteen-or-so Capitol girl get in that warranted such a bruise?

“Is that my shirt?” he asked, because the dark blue shirt she had on was incredibly familiar and wasn’t as battered as the pants – obviously designed for a man – she was wearing. It looked better on her than it did on him, though, it really brought out her eyes. “So what? You saw things laying around, clean clothes in the closet, but you thought the house was abandoned? What are you, a squatter or a thief?”

“I am no thief!” She straightened, openly offended by his accusation. Haymitch found it funny. “And I wouldn’t say the clothes are clean or that _the house_ is, for that matter, hence why I thought it was empty.”

_Feisty_.

“How did you even come in?” He crossed his arms and stepped to the right, to block any potential attempts at fleeing. He didn’t like the frantic way her eyes kept darting at the door behind him. She was about to go for it, it was written all over her face.

He should let her go. Out of sight, out of mind. But the bruise was tugging at his conscience.

“You should think about locking the back door.” she snapped. “I want to go now.”

“Yes, well… I want a lot of things I can’t have.” Haymitch sighed, before nodding to her cheek. “Who did this to you?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your concern, sir.” She crept along the wall, keeping him in her sight.

“A word of advice, sweetheart, if you’re trying to blend in stop talking like you’re in the Capitol.”

She froze and swallowed, eyes wide. “What would _you_ know about the Capitol?”

“Enough to understand why someone would want out.” It was getting difficult. Why did it have to be _bloody_ difficult? He just wanted to be sure she would be alright because throwing an injured girl in the snow seemed a little bit harsh even for him. “Now, let’s try _again_. Who did that to you, sweetheart?”

What was he going to do with her, anyway? Bringing her to the Justice Building seemed a good idea, or, better yet, to the train station. She had probably run away from home or something like that. Maybe Daddy didn’t want to buy her a new wig and she had decided life was too unfair in the Capitol… How she had managed to go as far as Twelve was anyone guess but she obviously was smart for lack of being clever. It couldn’t be more serious than that. She must have hurt her face while breaking into a house or another – he couldn’t believe most people would be as comprehensive as _he_ had been until then.

“Don’t call me sweetheart.” she cringed.

“Okay, what should I call you, then?” He was quickly becoming frustrated. This was all a childish tantrum, he was sure of it. And, of course, of all the houses she could have chosen, she _had_ to break into _his_. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t have one.” she lied, finally gathering her courage and pushing herself off the wall. “And now, you will step aside and let me leave.”

“Sorry, kid.” He smiled in apology. “Can’t do.” She couldn’t roam about the District with only his shirt on her back when snow was coming down so hard, she would catch her death and, somehow, he was sure someone would pin it on him. Haymitch wasn’t a sensible man but she looked like the kind of girl who would only consider the sensible approach. “Look, I will take you to town. You should go back to your family, I’m sure they’re worried about you.”

“I am not a kid.” And she didn’t look like a kid at the moment. She looked frightened and desperate – and he knew what would happen before she even put her hand in the large front pocket of her pants – but she didn’t look like a kid at all. “And I don’t have a family to go back to.” She pulled out a knife. “Step aside or I _will_ kill you.”

It was a nice knife if you wanted to scale a fish, he wasn’t sure it would work so well on humans, though. Maybe if she put enough strength behind it but she looked as weak as a kitten, unsteady on her feet, he could spy a slight limp… Okay, maybe it wasn’t _just_ a simple runaway story. He needed a drink to think properly and she needed ice for her cheek. If she would just stop being so damn stubborn for a second…

“Cute.” Her grip on the knife handle actually wasn’t so bad yet it wouldn’t take much to wrestle it from her. He hoped he wouldn’t have to do that. Too much trouble when he was sporting a hangover. “I have some of those too. Let’s not make a contest.”

“Back.” She advanced on him slowly, threatening him with the blade. He refused to move. “I _will_ kill you. I will do it.” There were tears in her eyes, now. Probably because she knew she wouldn’t and she knew he knew that too. She wasn’t a killer. He knew that kind, he was one of them. She wasn’t. “Don’t make me.”

“Nobody is making you do anything, sweetheart.” He nodded at her leg. “What happened?”

Her smile was devoid of any amusement or joy. It was bitter and sad. “I fell.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Did you fall or did someone push you?”

“I fail to see how that’s any of your concern.” She waved her knife in front her in what she probably thought was an intimidating fashion.

“And here’s that Capitol speech again.” He pointed out. “Look, I’m just trying to help.”

“Then you will step aside and each of us will go our merry way.” she said firmly.

She was close by now and he was done with chit-chat. He quickly grabbed her wrist and twisted it – enough for her to drop the knife but not enough to actually hurt her. That part worked well but he wasn’t expecting her to kick him in the stomach with her knee or to slam her fist on his back once he was bent in two. He rolled on the ground, the breath knocked out of him, and could only watch as she took off.

Never underestimate your opponent.

By the time he had recovered enough to go after her, she was gone and the snow had covered her tracks. It was as if she had never been there.

And maybe, that was for the best.

That girl was trouble and he had enough of that on his own.

 


	2. Chapter 1

Haymitch couldn’t get the girl out of his mind.

He kept himself busy all morning by bringing in all the wood he could from the shed and making a lazy inventory of the food left in the house yet he couldn’t shake away the memory of her frightened blue eyes.

She was weaponless now and she was so obviously not prepared to tackle Twelve’s winter… He kept an eye out when he went down to the Hob, in the afternoon, but if she was anywhere in the victors’ village, she was hiding very well. No tracks, no noise. He left one of his knives on a flat stone next to the entrance – a hunting knife, not the scabby blade she had been using – he had plenty of those, anyway.

The Hob was as busy as it always was, snow or not. He bought enough bottles of liquor from Ripper to last a few days and made his way to the grocer’s shop in upper town. He was just about to go back home when he passed Cray, the Head Peacekeeper, and a squad of four or five men. _Unusual_.

“Haymitch.” Cray greeted him more cordially than Haymitch thought strictly necessary. They weren’t friends by any means. If nobody liked _him_ , everybody hated Cray. The Head Peacekeeper might tolerate poaching and be one of Ripper’s best customer but his habits of soliciting prostitution from every desperate starving girl of the Seam was well-known and well despised. Twelve could do worse than Cray, though. Haymitch _had seen_ worse in other Districts during his Victory Tour. “Are you coming from the Hob?”

“Yes.” No point in lying to Cray. If he were to arrest people who practiced black market, he would have to put all his Peacekeepers into jail first.

“Nothing to report?”

“Greasy Sae put rats in her soup today, I would avoid it if I were you.” Strange question to ask. “What’s going on with them?” He nodded to the group of Peacekeepers waiting further down the road for their leader.

Cray waved his question away. “You know, just… patrolling.”

Peacekeepers, in Twelve, were too lazy to patrol. They never did that at random. _Never._ It would have been a _huge_ coincidence for them to start the very day he found a stranger in his bed. Haymitch, unfortunately, didn’t believe in coincidences.

“Come on, Cray, not to me…” he smirked. “What are you looking for?”

The Head Peacekeeper hesitated a few seconds and then barked out a laugh. “You know me too well. We’re not supposed to tell anyone but it won’t come to anything anyway. We’re looking for a woman.”

_Of course_ they were.

“A woman?” He was careful to sound curious but not interested. “Aren’t you _always_ looking for a woman?”

Cray laughed some more at his mediocre joke. He wasn’t the brightest bulb but that served Haymitch’s purposes more often than not. “This one’s special. She’s from the Capitol.”

_Coincidences?_ , a little voice snorted in his mind, _there were no such things._ Karma, on the other hand…

“You didn’t see a Capitol woman walking around the Hob, did you?” the Head Peacekeeper asked with obvious amusement.

“No, I can’t say that I have.” Haymitch forced himself to chuckle. “She shouldn’t be hard to spot though…”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Cray rolled his eyes. “You didn’t hear it from me but, word is, she led them on a merry chase. They can’t find her in the Capitol so they asked us to keep an eye open for her in the Districts. I don’t see how she could make it that far on her own, though. And what would she come to Twelve for anyway?”

“Go figure.” Haymitch shrugged. “Greasy Sae’s famous soup maybe.” The thought of any Capitol presented with a rat meat stew was hilarious for some reason and made him smirk wider. “What do they want her for?”

Cray’s face became serious once again, closed. “They didn’t explain anything. But they’re desperate to find her if you know what I mean. Shame.”

“Shame.” he agreed.

He _did_ know what the man meant. She would be executed before the cuffs were even properly secured around her wrists.

“Well, I hope for her sake she’s not out there.” Cray said, signaling to his men to keep going. “It’s going to get freezing, tonight.”

He watched thoughtfully the man leave with his squad before heading back to his house. Cray was a foul man but he was right on one thing : the temperature was going to drop lower. The snow had piled up another inch while he was out and the hike back to the victors’ village was a real struggle – he kept swallowing mouthfuls of liquor to keep the chills at bay but it wasn’t working all that well.

His knife wasn’t where he had left it anymore, which was good. Great, even. He didn’t have to feel guilty now, she was armed again and she could obviously hold her own if the Capitol was so anxious to find her. They would eventually, of course. They _always_ did. And even if she had been clever enough to avoid being captured until then, where would she go from Twelve? She was at the end of the line. There was nothing beyond their District but wilderness.

He reached his house just when the blizzard started. He mechanically lighted a fire before checking each and every room for hypothetical broken windows – or mysterious blonde fugitives – but there was nothing wrong or unexpected in there. _Where did she go?_ , he wondered. The logical answer was in any other house of the village – that’s what he would have done at least. But it wouldn’t help her much if she couldn’t start a fire… And she wouldn’t, he knew, because she was smart. She must have figured out that there was only one victor in the village and that two smoking chimneys would draw attention.

She wasn’t his problem, though. He had offered his help and she had rejected it. Granted, she was terrified at the time and she had absolutely no reason to trust him, but… _But nothing_ , he told himself angrily. In what amount of problems would he find himself in when people would finally capture her only to learn he had been helping her? _An awful_ _lot_ , that was how much. They would never execute a victor for treason but they could make his life more of a living hell than it already was. She wasn’t his _bloody_ problem.

She wasn’t his problem and that was why he blamed the half-bottle of liquor he drank while pondering the issue when he found himself almost knees deep in snow, a flashlight in his hand, exploring the neighboring streets. He went into a few houses but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t find her. He gave up when the snowstorm got so bad he couldn’t see beyond a few feet ahead. It was easy to get lost like that, all the more so when you were more drunk than sober. He left a blanket and some food on the back door porch anyway, just in case.

He couldn’t have explained why he bothered if anyone had asked.

He turned the television on – something he never did if he could help it – hoping to learn more about her but there was nothing of interest on the news. On retrospect, that wasn’t all that surprising. So he ended up on the couch, as he did most nights, slowly drinking the time away. He fell asleep at some point only to wake up to a world of white. The storm had lifted a little, the wind had died down, but large snowflakes were still falling from the sky.

The blanket and the food weren’t where he had left them.

He tried again to search some of the houses for her but it was obvious he wouldn’t find her while she didn’t want to be found. He had done the best he could. That was what he kept telling his conscience when the storm picked up again in the late afternoon. That night would be even colder than the previous one, he wasn’t sure she would make it out there on her own.

He settled on the couch again, nursing his drink. The wind was blowing so hard the whole house seemed to be shaking. He poked the fire regularly, careful not to let it die. It would be a difficult night for people in the Seam, he mused.

He was adding another log to the fire when he heard it : the small shuffling of feet.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” he drawled, slowly turning away from the flames. Sure enough, she was there, his mysterious squatter, wrapped in his blanket and covered in snow, shivering on the doorway to the living room.

“I knocked.” Her teeth were chattering with cold.

“Well, that’s a first for you.” he joked, sitting on the chair closest to the fire. “Come closer before you freeze to death.”

She hesitated a bit but she must have decided that he wasn’t a threat – or maybe she fancied the fire more than she was afraid of him – because she _did_ hobble closer. Her limp was more pronounced than the last time he had seen her. She was damp with snow, her clothes clung to her body like a second skin and her hair were stuck to her face. The bruise seemed to have faded a little, though.

“I will get you dry clothes.” he said. She didn’t even answer, she just kind of slumped on the ground and crawled as close to the fireplace as she dared. “Don’t burn yourself.” It didn’t take him long to come back with one of his less ragged shirt and pants he thought should fit her. “I will be in the kitchen.” – which was something he had never said before.

He heated up some soup leftovers, making sure she had plenty of time to get changed. When he came back with two bowls, she was wearing his brown flannel shirt and his grey pants. The blue shirt she had “borrowed” before was neatly hung on the back of a chair, the rest of her clothes had been flung more carelessly on another one. She was still sitting next to the fireplace, her left leg stretched out in front of her, she was hugging her right one close to her chest.

She thanked him softly when he handed her the bowl of soup, warming her hands on the faience. “Why are you helping me?”

That was a perfectly valid question. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any answer, so he started eating. “Dig in before it gets cold.”

She stared at him warily for a few minutes but when he said nothing and kept swallowing his broth, she started sipping the soup. If _sipping_ was the right word to describe what she was doing. She clang the spoon against the side of the bowl each time to make sure it wasn’t about to spill, then she blew on it before delicately sucking up the soup. She ate that broth like it was a sumptuous dish. It was such a Capitol thing to do, despite her obvious hunger, he was tempted to laugh. He refrained because it was actually more pathetic than it was funny.

She carefully put her empty bowl on the floor, wincing a little when she leaned on her arm. At least, she wasn’t shivering anymore.

“So, Princess…” No point beating around the bush. “I don’t have to tell you Peacekeepers are looking for you…”

“ _Here_?” Her face was a mask of pure terror.

“Everywhere, apparently.” He leaned back on the chair to watch her. “Which brings the question… What did you _do_ to make the Capitol _that_ angry with you, kid?”

“I’m nineteen and you are hardly older than me.” she snapped “Don’t be obnoxious.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what that means but I’m guessing it’s not nice.” he scoffed, more amused than annoyed. He ignored her glare and suppressed a smirk. He liked her. That was bad. “So? Why are you on Snow’s most wanted list?”

She seemed to shrink back on herself. She flicked her damp hair out of her face and hugged herself. “I am grateful for your help and I am sorry I stole from you before, that wasn’t very proper. You’ve been very kind and comprehensive but I can’t trust a stranger and I…”

“Okay.” he cut her off, raising a hand to stop her ramblings. “First, I think propriety is the last thing you should worry about. Second… Trust has to start somewhere. What’s your name?”

He couldn’t keep on calling her _mystery girl_ forever…

“What’s yours?” she shot back, a little too aggressively. She immediately bit her bottom lip. “I apologize.”

“Haymitch.” he replied, waving her excuses away.

Her eyes widened slightly. “Abernathy. Victor of the fiftieth Hunger Games…”

There was amazement in her voice or admiration perhaps. “Look at that… Wouldn’t have pegged you for a fan, sweetheart.”

“I rooted for you during the Quell.” She blushed and it was such a girlish thing to do he was taken aback. “I should have realized who you were earlier.”

“I will forgive you if you tell me your name.” His forgiveness obviously wasn’t worth that much because she only crept closer to the flames, so close, to say the truth, that he was a bit afraid she would light herself on fire. “Careful. I don’t fancy watching you burn alive, sweetheart.” he warned. “Let’s try an easier question. Where are you hurt? Face, leg, what else?” He was betting on the arm or the shoulder, she kept favoring one to the other.

“My… back.” She said, at last. “I think I have a cut but I can’t reach it. It keeps bleeding.”

_Wonderful_. She was going to bleed to death in his living-room. “I should take a look.” He didn’t move because he already knew she was going to freak out if he did.

“It’s alright.” She sounded less afraid now that she knew who he was. He wondered if it was because he truly had been her favorite during his Games and she felt he was familiar. Lots of Capitol citizens thought they knew him because of that… “It doesn’t hurt too much. That’s not the worst.”

“What’s the worst? The cheek?” The bruise looked pretty bad, even if it had faded to a dark grey-blue. It looked bad enough that the bone could be broken… “What did they use to do that kind of damage?”

She brushed her fingers against the bruise and winced. “A gun.”

He wanted to ask if it had been a Peacekeeper and, above all, how she had managed to escape them for so long but he knew those were questions she wouldn’t answer. “What about the leg?”

“My knee.” she corrected him quietly, staring at her left leg with a wistful look. “I twisted it. It could have been worse.”

Well, he couldn’t dispute that… She was being hunted by Peacekeepers, she had run away to the Districts… It _could_ have been worse. She could have been dead. Although, of course, death, sometimes, was preferable to other things in his opinion. “How did that happen?”

“I told you, I fell.” She closed her eyes and leaned against the side of the fireplace. “Well… That’s not entirely true. I didn’t fall, I jumped.”

“From high?” He blindly reached for a bottle and took a swing, unable to stop looking at her. She was something, that girl.

“It wasn’t that high, but it was fast.” She smiled that same sad bitter smile. “I’m so tired of running…”

“You can rest here for awhile, if you want to.” It was a dumb offer. He was getting distracted by her blue eyes. “You’re safe enough here, for now.”

She hummed softly something that sounded like a thank you. It took him a minute to understand she had fallen asleep. He couldn’t decently let her sleep on the floor, though.

He walked to her quietly, half-expecting her to bolt away from him, but she barely opened her eyes when he lifted her up. She was so light and felt so frail in his arms he almost got scared of breaking her. He set her down on the couch, noticing there _was_ a bloody spot on the shirt, above her shoulder blade, but it was mostly dry and she didn’t appear to be bleeding out so he let that be for the moment. Her skin, however, was cold to the touch. He piled a mountain of covers on her without her batting an eyelid. That was odd. She had been so on edge earlier…

Maybe she _was_ as tired as she looked. She probably had been waiting for a safe place to crash for days… Or, she might just be a heavy sleeper…

He chose to stay in the armchair instead of going up to his bedroom. It didn’t feel right, somehow, to leave her while she was sleeping. He drank a little but not too much. He didn’t dare.

And that turned out to be the best decision he had ever taken.

When he opened his eyes – it might have been hours or minutes he couldn’t say – she was whimpering in her sleep. The strained muttering was probably what had woken him up. She looked distressed and in pain so he walked to the couch, careful not to startle her – she still had his knife snatched somewhere on her after all. Her skin was clammy with perspiration. She had kicked the covers off at some point.

She was burning up and Haymitch had absolutely no idea what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your messages! Please let me know what you thought of this chapter =)


	3. Chapter 2

Her fever didn’t break the next day despite his best efforts. He tried cooling her by putting a wet towel on her forehead, he tried bringing the couch closer to the fire when she started shivering uncontrollably… _Nothing_. Haymitch wasn’t a healer and he kept no medicine in the house except liquor – which he wasn’t about to give her because he doubted that was the best idea. Even as far gone as he was, he still knew getting drunk wasn’t the answer to everything, not for everyone at least.

By the time the storm finally cleared up, she was completely delirious. Her teeth were chattering and she kept calling for her father, her mother and, sometimes, for someone named Domi or Domitia whom he had concluded to be her sister. She was so pale the bruise on her cheek seemed even darker by contrast.

“Come on, sweetheart.” he begged. He had been trying for the past half-hour to make her drink some soup to no avail. He was cradling her head in his hand and was trying to bring the bowl to her mouth with his other one but the hot liquid kept sliding on her lips and trickling down her jaw. It was a lost cause.

And if he didn’t find a solution soon, she was going to die. That much was obvious.

She needed a help he couldn’t give.

There was a doctor in town but he didn’t trust him. The man would sooner turn to Cray than actually treat her… His best hope was the Seam. People there looked after each other, or at least that was how it had been when he was growing up… There was a healer there, he knew, a woman.

The snow had stopped falling. If he wanted to try, it was now or never. And yet, he dwelled on the decision… Could he take the risk ? It wasn’t his life at stake – well, it _could_ be his life at stake depending on what they would do to him for helping her but that wasn’t the point. He couldn’t afford to wait much longer, though. There would be no more reason to take any risk if he did because she would be dead and his next dilemma would be what to do with her corpse. Her breathing was labored, each breath sounded like a rasp… He slowly brushed aside the locks plastered to her clammy brow.

“I’m getting you help.” he finally decided. “Don’t die while I’m out, Princess.”

He made sure the fireplace was well-stocked and that she was secured enough in her nest of blankets, so she wouldn’t fall off the couch and stay warm, before rushing to the Seam as quickly as he could given the amount of snow. It was better once he was out of the victors’ village, the streets were more frequently used, the snow had been piled up on the side and his progress was steadier.

He didn’t know where the healer lived exactly but he knew Ripper would be at the Hob despite the weather and that _she_ certainly would know. He hurried there and took directions from the woman, thankful for her lack of intrusive questions. That was what he liked about the Hob and the Seam, people seldom asked questions.

He found the house the old woman had indicated rather easily, there were potted plants on the other side of the window. He hammered on the door rather than knocked. It opened on none other than Everdeen which wasn’t excellent news. Haymitch couldn’t say he was a big fan of the man : nice enough chap but he obviously didn’t like the victor much, he winced and turned his head away each time he saw Haymitch drinking at the Hob.

“What do you want?” Everdeen asked, not at all welcoming. Haymitch could hear a baby crying inside, he had probably just woken it up with all his hammering.

“I need your wife.” No time for pleasantries. The man looked him up and down, sighed and stepped aside. Haymitch internally cringed, knowing the next part wouldn’t sit well with the miner. “No, at my house. It’s… urgent.”

“She can look after you here or you can go in town and try the doctor.” Everdeen growled.

Haymitch rubbed his eyes tiredly. He noticed his hands were shaking and he related the tremors to the distinct lack of alcohol in his body. He hadn’t been _that_ sober in years. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, he could see why he had stopped.

“Look, it’s not for me. My… _friend_ is sick.” The word felt strange on his tongue. When was the last time he had used it? The closest thing he had to a friend since his Games was Chaff and even that friendship had a few strings attached. It had to when they were mentoring tributes who would eventually end up killing each other. “She has a fever, I don’t know what to do.” He was at a loss. Everdeen looked unforgiving and not ready to compromise yet Haymitch couldn’t let the girl die. It was an odd feeling but he knew he _couldn’t_ let her die. “I can pay. Whatever you want.”

A woman appeared behind the miner, a tiny baby in her arms. She was very beautiful, blond hair and blue eyes… Merchant looks. He recalled her vaguely from his school days. “I will come.”

“Thank you.” he breathed out, not bothering to hide his relief.

“Ask Izzie to come here to watch Katniss on the way over.” Everdeen instructed. “I will catch up with you at the victors’ village.”

The woman nodded and handed him the baby girl before gathering some herbs and vials in a basket. Finally, she wrapped herself in a thick wool shawl and closed the door behind her. “Lead the way.”

Most of the walk was spent in an uncomfortable silence.

“Who is she? Your friend?” she asked when they reached the slope going up to the village.

Haymitch heard what she wouldn’t say : _I didn’t know you had any_. He didn’t answer. Focusing on reaching the house through the mass of snow without breaking their neck was difficult enough, he didn’t need to ponder complicated questions.

He was terrified of finding a corpse on his couch but the girl was still breathing – if her rasping wheezes could be called that.

“What did you do to that poor girl?” Everdeen’s wife exclaimed as soon as she saw the bruise on her cheek. She pushed him aside to kneel next to her. He stumbled over a bottle of liquor and nearly split his head open on the coffee table. He didn’t know what he was madder about… Nearly falling or the waste of perfectly good alcohol?

“ _I_ didn’t do anything.” he snapped defensively. “She fell.”

“Down the stairs? Against a door?” The woman sounded bitter as she started examining the girl. “Save it, I’ve heard it a thousand times.”

“I didn’t hit her.” he sneered.

She shot him a glance that was clearly disbelieving and he just knew there was no use arguing. She didn’t trust him. And why would she? She probably remembered very clearly how feral he had become at some point during the Quell. Haymitch wasn’t violent, not if he could help it, but during his Games? He had killed mercilessly and repeatedly.

That woman didn’t know what it was like in the arena, how it _changed_ people. All she saw when she looked at him was the boy with a knife that had killed so many other teenagers. It probably wasn’t a stretch to think he had beaten down a nineteen years old girl.

“What’s her name? I don’t recognize her…” she asked, focusing on the shivering form under the blankets.

Joy of a small District, people more or less all knew each other.

“I’m not sure.” he replied honestly.  

This time it was a full on glare. “How can you _not_ know? You picked her up, you beat her and God knows what else… And now _what_?”

He threw an empty bottle against the wall angrily. She flinched. _Of_ _course_ , she did. Sometimes, he wondered if they realized how much thinking of him as a monster _actually_ made him act more and more like one. He was a monster. He knew that. But he didn’t need the daily reminder. The nightmares were enough.

“I didn’t do anything to her.” he hissed. “She was like that when I found her. I tried to help, that’s all. Now, can you heal her or not?”

She pursed her lips in annoyance and surveyed the stranger thoughtfully before taking her pulse. “Do you have a bed? Something other than the couch. With clean sheets.”

“I have a guest room but… it’s stuffy and probably dusty.” he gritted through his teeth.

“Well, go clean that up.” she ordered him, looking more closely at the bruise on her cheek. She palpated the skin until the girl moaned in pain. “And don’t come back down until I call you.” He hesitated a moment too long, she turned to him with a stern face. “You want to help her? She needs a bed with clean sheets. Go, _now_.”

It was simple enough of a task but he was really reluctant to leave the girl out of his sight.

“Just…” He shook his head, unsure of how to finish that sentence. “Make sure she’s okay.”

Her eyes softened slightly but she was still wary of him, he could tell, so he left. The girl was probably safer in her care for now anyway.

He went up to the second bedroom – a room he had never really entered before – and contemplated his next dilemma. His life had sure gotten more complicated since that girl had broken into his house…

How did you clean a room? Sheets had been thrown on the furniture at some point for whatever reason… He was still pondering the problem when he heard the front door opening and closing and quiet chatter downstairs. He wasn’t very surprised when Everdeen appeared on the bedroom threshold with a displeased look on his face.

“My wife said your friend is badly hurt. Tell me where she came from so I can call her family. She should be with them.” the miner spat.

Loathing was written all over Everdeen’s face. The man was probably dying to hit him in a sense of misplaced anger on behalf of a stranger.

Haymitch held absolutely no love for righteous people…

But righteous people had their flaws. They would move heaven and earth to find her family but they wouldn’t report a helpless girl to the likes of Cray.

“You’re a poacher.” he stated flatly.

“You can try and blackmail me all you want, I’m not going to stand by while you beat up your girlfriend.” Everdeen was clearly offended by the mere idea of someone trying to corrupt him.

“It must be exhausting to be so _honorable_.” Sarcasm probably wasn’t the smartest path but Haymitch was at his wits end. He was tired, he was desperate for a drink and he was done with being accused of beating up a – not so – helpless woman. If anything, _she_ had assaulted _him_ with a knife… “I’m not trying to blackmail you, I’m trying to explain that as a poacher you must know that, sometimes, laws aren’t always… _fair_.”

Everdeen frowned, clearly confused. “Just say what you have to say.”

“Peacekeepers are looking for her.” He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake and Everdeen _was_ a righteous man. “I don’t know why. I don’t even know her name. I don’t think they’re going to punish her with a mere whipping, if you catch my drift.” The man studied him in silence and Haymitch damned his luck. Perhaps not so righteous after all. There was another option, though. “I have money and you have a baby. I can pay your wife to take care of her injuries and you to keep your mouth shut. It’s a fair deal, you won’t get anything if you report her.”

“I am _not_ going to report her. Who do you take me for?” Everdeen looked downright insulted.

“What do I know? I don’t know you and I don’t particularly want to.” Haymitch sneered. “I just want to make sure she’s safe. Now… Do you know how to clean a room?”

Everdeen rolled his eyes and opened the window wide. Wind blew inside, causing the dust to rise in puffs.

“Remind me not to ask you for anything _ever again_.” Haymitch coughed.

In the end, opening the window wasn’t such a bad idea. Between the two of them, they managed to get the room passably clean.

“You said you didn’t know her…” Everdeen pointed out while they were making the bed. Or rather, while _he_ was making the bed and the other man tried – and failed – to swipe the dust off the window. “Why are you helping her?”

He wished they would all stop asking that.

“I don’t know.” Truth wasn’t often his first choice, but… He didn’t have any other answer to that. “She’s…” Gorgeous. Brave. Vulnerable. Strong. _A_ _survivor_. “I couldn’t let her die out there.” Which wasn’t, in any way, an explanation. “Could you?”

It was a stupid question, of course. Leaving her to her fate would probably have not even occurred to Everdeen.

“People are always telling me I’m too soft.” the miner joked, closing the window carefully. “Soft isn’t your problem.”

“You certainly seem to have a lot of ideas about what I am or am not.” he grumbled. He tucked the cover hastily under the bed, not particularly caring if it was the proper way to do it.

“We were friends with Maysilee.”

It was uncanny how easily a simple name could summon a ghost. He shut his eyes tight but it wasn’t enough to make her go away. She stayed there, in his mind, a knife in her hand and a fake defiant smile on her lips, her blond hair lashing against her back in the wind…

“Is that why you’re doing it?” Everdeen insisted. “Because she reminds you of her?”

They were both blond, brave and too young to die, was that enough to draw a comparison? Was _that_ the actual reason why he was risking so much for a stranger? It would be a good explanation, one he could probably accept without shame. But he knew, deep down, none of that was about Maysilee. It was about Mystery Girl and her pleading blue eyes.

It was about saving someone when he couldn’t save any of the children they put in his care every year.

“I’m sorry about your friend.” He had never offered any condolences to anyone for the three other District 12 tributes he had run against in the Games. To be honest, he avoided Maysilee’s sister like the plague. He saw her, sometimes, at the market or in the street. He drank for days when that happened. Fortunately, she didn’t go out much and he lived as a recluse, so they managed not to cross paths more than once or twice a year. He felt guilty for a lot of things but Maysilee… Maysilee, somehow, was the worst. “She was… a good person.”

And she shouldn’t have died. But what would be the point in bringing that up?

“It wasn’t your fault.” The voice came from the threshold, soft and sad. Everdeen’s wife. “It didn’t make it easier to accept, though.”

“How is she?” he asked immediately, throwing the pillow carelessly on the bed. Who cared about pillowcases anyway?

“Not so good but it could be worse.” The healer folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “What caused the bruise on her cheek? And don’t say she fell because it’s obviously a huge blow, so what did you hit her with?”

“So what, because I killed a bunch of people in an arena you think I go around beating women up?” he scowled.

He pushed past her and hurtled down the stairs, rushing to the living-room. The girl was where he had left her, her skin still damp with perspiration. She was breathing more easily though. He sat on the coffee table, watching her silently and occasionally telling her she was safe when she called for one of her parents.

The Everdeens came downstairs after a few minutes, the woman looked guilty but he waved away any apologies she tried to give him. There was only one thing he was interested in.

“She’s not sick because of the cold, even if I can’t imagine it helped.” the healer explained. “When I checked her arms and her legs because…” she blushed and faltered a little in her speech. Haymitch deduced it was because she had been looking for more signs of abuse. “Well, she has bruises all over her body and her knee is sprained but there are a few cuts too. There’s one on her back that is pretty deep and infected. The infection is causing the fever. I treated it and stitched it up but we have to make sure it doesn’t progress further. The fever has to break or…”

“What can I do?” he asked. “There are medicines for that…”

“In the Capitol, maybe.” she sighed. “Here we have to make-do. Even in town… We won’t find anything stronger than my plants.”

Everdeen offered to carry the girl upstairs, eyeing Haymitch’s shaking hands dubiously, but he wanted to do it himself. She was _his_ responsibility, not theirs.

He was even more careful than he had been the night before, gathering her in his arms like a doll ready to break, her head rolled limply on his shoulder. It was worse once she was safely in bed : the white sheets only enhanced her paleness.

“I have to go back home for my daughter.” Everdeen’s wife said, after making sure the girl was settled. She applied a wet cloth on her forehead. “I will come back in a few hours. Make sure the fever doesn’t get worse.”

“You can’t drink and take care of her.” Everdeen warned him once his wife had left the room. “If you fall asleep…”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Haymitch snarled back, tired of their accusations. He _could_ take care of her. God knew why he was thinking that because he couldn’t even keep a plant alive but he _knew_ he could. He felt linked to her somehow.

During the next few days, he counted time not in hours or by the succession of light and dark but by the constant coming and going of Everdeen and his wife. He didn’t sleep much and he drank even less, just enough to keep the craving for alcohol at bay. Almost every minute was spent at the girl’s side, making sure the fever wasn’t getting worse or helping her drink some soup… The healer was pleased with the way the infection had died down but the girl had developed a bad cough – _that_ was from the cold – and she was mostly delusional. Sometimes, she struggled against them when they got too close, begging for her life and her family’s.

Haymitch wasn’t afraid the Everdeens would report her anymore. They pitied her too much for that now. They were as far gone as he was.

How many days since the night she had crept to his fireplace? Four? Five, maybe. Enough for the snow to melt down a little so that the victors’ village streets were more easily accessible, according to the healer. She said the fever was taking its toll on the girl’s body but they couldn’t do anything except waiting.

Waiting was killing him.

Haymitch _hated_ waiting. He hated the feeling of her perpetually clammy hot skin under his fingers. He hated the frantic way her blue eyes searched the room in pure terror when she called for help. He hated the rasping sound she made each time she breathed…

He hated feeling scared every time he startled awake from a nightmare, sure she had died while he wasn’t looking.

Feeling scared was one thing, but the time he awoke to complete silence – no labored wheezing – he felt utterly petrified. He sat up straight, barely noticing the pain in his neck, and didn’t dare look at her for a few seconds.

He had failed.

He knew he had failed.

He rested his hand on hers, slowly. The skin wasn’t hot but it wasn’t cold either. It was warm. The fingers twitched.

_Relief_ didn’t even came close to describing what he felt when he saw her chest rising and falling regularly. He removed the wet cloth from her forehead, feeling the skin there tentatively. Like her hand, it was warm but not burning to the touch.

The fever had finally broken.

Her eyes opened just as he was brushing her hair off her face.

“Hello, Princess.” His chest felt heavy with emotions he couldn’t explain if he tried. “Welcome back.”

She frowned a little but closed her eyes.

It was three hours and forty-five minutes before they opened again. He knew because he counted each and every minute. He helped her drink a glass of water, recalling how many times the healer had insisted on proper hydration – and not only for her but for him too because, apparently, he couldn’t live on two glasses of liquor a day.

“What…” she asked tiredly, her voice rough with disuse.

“You were sick.” He put the glass back on the bedside table and helped her to lie back down. She didn’t seem to have any strength left. Problematic for a fugitive, he figured. “Told you I should have taken a look at that cut.”

She blinked a few times, obviously trying to connect the dots. “You took care of me?”

“I could hardly throw you in the streets, sweetheart.” He noticed the bruise on her cheek had dimmed to a shadow, which was good. No broken bones.

“You didn’t have to do that.” She winced when she tried to sit up only to fall down heavily on the bed. “I should leave.”

“I don’t think so.” He nearly laughed at the mild glare she sent his way. “You’re in no state to do anything but rest some more. You’re perfectly safe here, for now.”

“But… It’s dangerous for you too and I don’t want to impose…” She curled up on her side, though, sinking more deeply under the covers and, try as she might, she was unable to hide a yawn.

“You broke into my house, stole my shirt and then nearly died on my couch.” he pointed out. “I think we’re a little past that, now.”

A small smile tugged at her lips but she was dozing off, her eyelids kept fluttering close.

“Sleep.” he ordered unnecessarily. He got up, wincing a little at the pain in his neck and back. Sitting in a chair was no way to get a good night of sleep. “I will heat some soup for you.” He didn’t get any answer which made him smirk. “’Night, Princess.”

“Effie.” she mumbled, her blue eyes fixed on him, cloudy with exhaustion. “My name is Effie.”

His smirk gave way to a happy grin – he would have denied it, though, because he was a grumpy man who certainly never grinned; he had a reputation to uphold. “Goodnight, Effie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make my day! Please let me know what you think! I enjoy your theories very much =)


	4. Chapter 3

The shuffling of feet startled him. The blade bit into his finger and he let out a curse.

“Are you hurt?” Effie asked, worriedly.

“Just a scratch.” Haymitch sucked the small wound to stop the slight trickle of blood, turning around to face her. The pale light of the kitchen lamps made her hair shine like gold – not that he would notice something like that… “You’re not supposed to be out of bed.” he scolded her. She had steadily been getting better for the last few days but Mrs Everdeen – how weird was it that the woman couldn’t be more than two years older than him at most and that he was unable to call her by her first name? She _was_ frightening – had still insisted on bed rest.

“I don’t like being idle.” she said, coming closer to peer at the mess behind his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Cooking.” Or, rather, _trying_ to cook. It was not something he was actually good at and it was not something he had done for… six or seven years, at the very least. He stepped aside to let her inspect the mess he had made of the squirrel he had bought from Everdeen. The miner was quickly becoming wealthier since they had gotten better acquainted but was clever enough to hide it from everyone in the Seam.

She made a disgusted face.

“I think I just became a vegetarian.” she joked.

He didn’t know what that meant but he didn’t want to ask, he had been told by enough Capitol citizens how unlucky it was that he was so uneducated. Uneducated, in their mind, often meant stupid. He didn’t want her to think he was stupid. He wasn’t. And it would hurt if she told him that.

“May I do something to help?” she offered.

“Well, you _may_ drop the formal talk, Princess.” He grabbed the carrots he had bought at the market, directly imported from Eleven. “You can cut that if you want.”

“I wish you would stop calling me that.” she sighed, grabbing a knife and making even more of a mess with her carrot than he had done with the squirrel. “I have a name, you know.”

“Given that’s actually the only thing I know about you, I’m not about to forget it.” He let his eyes trail on her body appreciatively. She was wearing his blue shirt again – and she could definitely keep it because it _really_ looked better on her – and woolly white socks, and that was all. The shirt was too big on her: she had to roll up the sleeves and it was falling a little lower than her mid-thigh. No woman in District Twelve would ever wear that in front of a stranger but, by Capitol standards, it probably was longer than fashion dictated. She was a beautiful woman. She was a _gorgeous_ woman. It was getting harder and harder not to notice it day after day. “You look like a princess to me.”

Her blush spread from her cheeks to her throat and disappeared under the collar of the shirt… The sight was… riveting. Haymitch promised himself to find new ways to make her flustered.

“Thank you.” She cleared her throat and put the knife down, presenting him with uneven pieces of vegetables. It looked as if those poor carrots had met an untimely and painful death.

“Have you ever done that before?” he asked, putting the carrots in the pan with the meat before lowering the flames a little.

“Not really.” she winced apologetically. “My parents have a cook and I usually order take-away or go to a restaurant.”

 _Present_ _tense_ , he noticed The first time she had met him, she had said her family was gone. Either she had lied or their death was recent enough that it hadn’t properly sunk in yet.

“Go and sit down.” he suggested “You should mind the knee.”

It was still slightly swollen.

“Oh, that’s nothing.” She smiled but perched on a chair nevertheless. “I’ve been wearing heels since I was twelve. I’m used to sprains.”  

He made sure the stew wouldn’t burn and then joined her at the table. He immediately snatched the bottle he had left there and took a relieved swallow.

“You… drink a lot.” Her voice was tentative and her face was guarded. “I’ve noticed.”

He shrugged, faking detachment. He didn’t particularly feel like being called a drunkard in his own home by a girl he was or wasn’t fancying a little but he was used to it. Nothing new there.

“Sweetheart, you haven’t seen me ‘drink a lot’ since you arrived.” he chuckled bitterly. “I’ve been pacing myself.” For her sake mostly, but he wasn’t about to admit that aloud.

He was expecting disgust or judgment, her eyes only softened. “Why do you drink so much?”

He watched her for a long moment but she stayed silent, waiting for an answer he didn’t know how to give. Why was he drinking? No one ever asked that before. They either knew or they thought they knew. They never _asked_.

“To forget.” he said, at last.

She studied the bottle in his hand with a contemplative look. “Does it work?”

“Not really.” He was about to have another go at the bottle when she placed her hand on his, preventing him from taking another swing.

When was the last time a human being had touched him with kindness and care rather than hatred and ill-intentions? Before the Games, he thought. Before they killed his family and his girlfriend. Before he became Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the fiftieth Hunger Games.

“May I be honest?” Her blue eyes shone with understanding. Not _pity_ \- that he would never have allowed - but _understanding_ and it made all the difference in the world.

“You tell me.” he joked, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re the one running away from the authorities and being all mysterious about who you are. You could be a compulsive murderer for all I know.”

She squeezed his hand playfully and he let go of the bottle to let their fingers intertwine. It was… _weird_ to watch her small hand with broken nails that obviously had once been perfectly manicured pressed against his big calloused one.

“Yet, you took me in.” There was a twinkle in her eyes when she smiled. “I could have killed you in your sleep.”

“Two things I know about you, beside your name, sweetheart.” he smirked. “You’re a failed thief and…”

“I am not a thief.” she huffed. “I _borrowed_ your shirt. I would have given it back to you. Eventually.”

“You could always give it back right now, you know…” he suggested.

He had intended it as a joke but their eyes met and the kitchen seemed small and oppressing all of a sudden. It felt as if there wasn’t enough air to breathe. He couldn’t help glancing at her mouth. She bit her bottom lip and it nearly was his undoing.

“Don’t tempt me.” Her attempts at levity failed spectacularly.

He cleared his throat and forced himself to look away. It would be dangerous to give in to the attraction he felt for her. He didn’t allow people to get close to him and, yet, there she was, closer than most only after a few days… He knew nothing about her. She was just passing through in his life. She would leave eventually and he had a feeling that, if he let her, she would leave him heartbroken.

“Okay, three things I know about you, beside your name, sweetheart. One, you’re a failed thief. Two, you’re a flirt. Three…” He looked at her again. “You’re no killer.”

He was waiting for a smile or a retort, he only got regrets and bitterness.

“You might be wrong about that.” She pulled her hand back. “Anyway, you switched topics. We weren’t talking about me.”

“Weren’t we?” He lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. “But there’s so much to tell…”

She didn’t look very impressed by his open attempts at fishing for information. She frowned a little. “You’re so young… You shouldn’t waste your time away in _that_.” She gestured to the bottle of liquor. “It won’t help you.”

“Nothing will help me.” he sighed. He stood up, using the excuse of the stew to turn his back on her. “There’s nothing left to help. My life is over, Princess, that’s how it is. I’m just waiting for Death to catch up.”

The chair scraped the floor. She approached him with caution, uncertain of her welcome. She didn’t touch him but she stood close - closer than most dared.

“You shouldn’t say such things.” she scolded him quietly. “There’s always hope. Look at me… I escaped from the Capitol, I… I did things I thought I could never do. You can’t just… You can’t just give up on life, Haymitch. You have to fight.”

He didn’t take his eyes away from the stew he was stirring. “Why fight when there’s nothing left to fight for?”

He was half-expecting a lecture on pretty ideals and worthy causes – why else would she had been an enemy on the Capitol? But she surprised him.

She kept doing that, _surprising him_ , it was getting annoying.

“Because so many are dead…” she said slowly, eyes full of tears. Some of them fell down her cheeks but she wiped them away angrily. “Because you have a duty to people who loved you and died for you. You have to stay alive for their sake.”

He pondered that for a moment and then turned to face her properly. “The difference between you and me, sweetheart, is that you’re still running. I’ve stopped a long time ago.”

She was still in her arena. He had exited his only to find out that life after the Games was an arena of its own. There was no _out_ from this life. She hadn’t understood that yet.

“Maybe you should start running again, then.” she insisted.

“You’re so _stubborn_.” He rolled his eyes. “What do you care what I do or not?”

“You helped me.” She put her hands on her hips in an obstinate stance. “It’s only polite to help you in return.”

“You don’t owe me, anything.” he grumbled.

“Of course, I do.” she argued.

He shook his head and leaned against the counter, crossing his arm. “Fourth thing I know about you, sweetheart : you’re _annoying_.”

A teasing smile appeared on her lips. “First thing I know about you: you’re infuriating. Second thing: underneath all those uncaring speeches, you’re a big softy. Third thing: you’re a good man. Fourth thing…” she stopped suddenly and blushed a little.

“Fourth thing?” he prompted, because it had to be good to make her cheeks flush like that…

Had she ever backed down from a challenge in her whole life? He would bet on _never_.

“You’re quite handsome for someone from District Twelve.” she said. “But don’t let that go to your head.”

He could have gone without the bit about District Twelve, though… _Capitol_ …

“Fifth thing.” he replied, lifting an eyebrow. “You’re prejudiced.”

Which brought the question of how she had ended up in her predicament. He couldn’t see her as an activist…

“Fifth thing. You’re rude.” she snapped, as if it were the worst insult in her arsenal. It probably was.

He liked the way her eyes sparkled in anger.

“Says the woman who broke into my house and then criticized my homekeeping skills…” he snorted.

“I was so tired I couldn’t see straight, alright?” she admitted in a sigh. “Had I been more awake I would _never_ have stumbled into your bed. Happy, now?”

“Not so much.” he smirked. “But you’re always welcome into my bed… I’m sure I would be happier, then.”

She rolled her eyes but there was a smile tugging at her lips. “Sixth thing: you’re depraved.”

“Sixth thing.” he shot right back. “You love it.”

She grinned but didn’t reply and sat back down on her chair, rubbing her knee a little.

“Are you ever going to tell me how you did that?” He was curious about the whole thing but had refrained from questioning her those last few days since she was so obviously ill-disposed to tell him why Peacekeepers were after her.

“I told you.” She winced at the memory. “I jumped.”

“Not so high but fast, yeah, I remember.” He shrugged. “‘Isn’t much of an explanation, though. Where did you jump from?”

She picked at a loose thread on the hem of the shirt. “A train.”

At first he thought he had heard wrong but it became obvious pretty quickly that it wasn’t the case. “A _train_. You jumped from a _train_. A _running_ train?”

She seemed to shrink back on herself. “There was a lot of snow, it wasn’t that dangerous. The speed was frightening…” She closed her eyes and turned her head away.

“What happened to you, Effie?” he asked softly. “The whole story.”

How did a girl from the Capitol who didn’t seem to be particularly opposed to the system found herself having to jump from a train to save her life?

“I can’t tell you.” she whispered.

“You don’t trust me.” He could understand that. He probably wouldn’t trust anyone if he were her. That was the wisest thing to do. People were desperate and afraid of the Capitol, they wouldn’t risk anything for a stranger. Never mind a _Capitol_ stranger…

“I trust you.” she swore defiantly, turning to face him again. Fat silent tears were rolling down her cheeks and despite her best attempts to wipe them away more kept coming. “I just… _can’t_.”

Because telling it would make it real, he figured.

“Okay, Princess.” he said. “It’s fine. I will just have to trust _you_ not to murder me.”

She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I think I will go rest a little, now.”

He watched her leave the kitchen, wishing he knew miraculous words to alleviate her pain. But there were none. Or if there were, no one ever shared them with him.

He sat back at the kitchen table and stared at his bottle of liquor. He could hear her sobs from downstairs. He was longing to drink but he knew it wouldn’t be a single mouthful or even a mere glass. If he as much as touched the bottle, he would down it and probably another one too. She would come back to the kitchen at some point and she would find him passed out drunk and… And what? What did he care what she thought of him?

But he _did_ care.

Because he knew she wouldn’t judge or reprimand him. She would probably look after him and feel sorry for not knowing how to help him, she was that kind of girl – _big heart_ , not good when you were on the run for your life. And she had enough on her plate already.

So he listened to her sobbing and stared at the bottle and wondered how long he could resist the pull. Everything was perfectly balanced for now : he yearned for liquor nearly as much as he thought about her. But at some point…

At some point, something would give and he didn’t know what he would make of that.


	5. Chapter 4

There wasn’t much to do at night when you couldn’t sleep for fear of nightmares, so Haymitch was laying on his bed, watching the sealed bottle in his hand and wondering what he was waiting for. Getting drunk was the only way to get some undisturbed rest, he knew that.

He wasn’t actually expecting the knock on his open door but he wasn’t that surprised either. He had heard her scream earlier even though he had not done the mistake of barging into her room, knife at the ready, certain someone was trying to kill her, like he had done a few days ago – it had taken one hour to convince her she was safe and not about to be arrested by Peacekeepers. Two weeks since that girl had – literally – broken into his life and he was no closer to unravel the mystery she was wrapped in.

“Can’t sleep, sweetheart?” he asked.

She leaned against the door, hugging herself. “I had a nightmare. I… I don’t want to be alone. Would you mind it terribly if…” Her sentence trailed off, her eyes darting to the empty space on his bed.

“Be my guest.” he smirked. “I _did_ say you were always welcome here, after all.”

She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes – they were clouded, haunted. She sat beside him and huddled against the headboard, legs folded close to her chest.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He pondered her question a few seconds, staring at the bottle. The dim light coming from the bedside lamp reflected on the glass, making it look as if the liquid inside was shining. Tempting.

“I’m contemplating the idea of getting wasted so I can sleep.” he said.

She made a disapproving face. He had finally given up two days before and he had drunk an entire bottle. He had no clear recollection of what had happened precisely but when he had finally sobered up, she had told him in harsh and unforgiving terms that the seventh fact she had learned about him was that he was mean when he was drunk. He had retaliated by saying she was nosy and she had slammed the door of her bedroom so angrily he had been half-afraid she would run away during the night.

She hadn’t.

“My mother used to make me some herbal tea when I couldn’t sleep.” She propped her chin on her knees, her eyes were lost in the distance, gazing into the past maybe. “She says it helps you relax…”

She did that often when she mentioned her family : she switched from past to present and to past again as if she wasn’t sure which tense to use.

“I don’t think we have that kind of things here.” He would ask Everdeen’s wife, though. She seemed to know every damn plant in the District. “I would offer you some booze but I’m kind of afraid you’re going to pour it all over my head…”

“That would be a show of extremely bad manners.” she refuted, but she _did_ look tempted to do just that.

“Eight.” It was a running joke between them now, enumerating things they discovered about each other. “You’re overly obsessed with manners.”

“Manners are the sign of a civilized society.” she recited, almost mechanically.

“Do they drone that into you at school or something?” he snorted.

She studied him for a moment, clearly having a debate with herself.

“Eight, you hate the Capitol.” she whispered.

He shrugged. “What’s not to hate?”

“It’s beautiful.” she protested slowly.

“It’s _fake_.” he snarled back, turning his head away from her. “Glitter isn’t gold, Princess. Everything there… Everyone... Smoke and mirrors.”

“This isn’t true.” She sounded pained by his words but Haymitch refused to feel sorry for that. He had made up his mind on the Capitol long ago. “Some people maybe, but not _everyone_.”

“I’ve never met anyone from the Capitol who wasn’t a phony or a total moron.” He rolled the bottle between his fingers, dying to get the cap off and swallow some of the liquor.

He didn’t realize his mistake until she spoke again. “Do you think I am a fraud or an idiot?”

He frowned and looked up at her in alarm. In truth, he had forgotten where she came from. He often did. She was so… _different_ from what he was used to when dealing with Capitol citizens. She was difficult but not on purpose and she wasn’t cruel. She was kind. She was human. She was a real person not a mumbo jumbo of colors, high pitched faked laughs and condescension.

“I think there’s a reason you ran away.” he said. “I can’t imagine you fitting in there really well.”

She frowned. “I’m afraid you misunderstood. I have nothing against the Capitol itself. I love the Capitol… I was working as a model for a well-known stylist. I was about to become an escort for the Games, actually. They approached me. They said all I had to do was apply to the position and it would be mine…”

He shook his head. “No way.”

She stared at the wall, blushing a little. “I know it’s probably hard to believe given what I look like right now but I used to be good-looking. If you could see me with one of my wigs and some make-up on…”

“I would find you ridiculous.” he concluded. The mere idea of her glorious curls hidden under one of those atrocious wigs was a shame. As for make-up… He liked her face exactly as it was – the bruise put aside. The eccentric clothes on the other hand, he could imagine on her easily, something more fitting to her features than the shapeless pants she had borrowed from him. But the wig and the make-up, he really couldn’t… She wasn’t like that in his mind. She wasn’t Effie, Capitol model, but Effie, the mysterious girl from the Capitol who was fighting for her life. “You don’t need all that crap.”

“It’s either really insulting or really sweet depending on how you intended that.” She lifted her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

“Are you fishing for compliments, sweetheart?” He couldn’t help but smirk. “You’re gorgeous, you know that, I know that… Even Everdeen knows that, I think, as enamored with his wife as he is…”

She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t be daft, he’s always been a gentleman with me.”

Too much of a gentleman if you asked Haymitch. The man was always coming and going with squirrels or whatever he caught that day – which was great because meat was hard to come by and he had too much money anyway – adamant that the girl should eat properly because she was still recovering – which was less great because he didn’t like having to fight for her attention and Everdeen with his thoughtful eyes and brooding looks took _a lot_ of her attention.

“Nine, you’re oblivious to the effect you have on men.” He rolled his eyes. “Because I assure you, no man in his right mind would look at you and think gentlemanly thoughts, married or not.”

She seemed amused. “Are _you_ in your right mind?”

He laughed at that one, surprising even himself with how genuine his amusement was. She often did that: make him forget everything else for a small, tiny moment. Sometimes when he was talking to her, he felt normal – just a young man like any other young man on the planet, not a victor.

He wriggled his eyebrows. “I am _very much_ in my right mind.”

“See, _I_ _knew_ you were depraved.” She shook her head with a grin. “I’m sure he’s just being nice. And he’s too old anyway.”

“He’s two or three years older than me.” he frowned. “Do you think I’m old?”

“I think you act like a child more often than not.” She hid a yawn behind her hand. “That would be point nine, by the way.”

“You should try to get some sleep.” There were bags under her eyes. He knew he was one to talk given how he passed from exhaustion and alcohol more often than he actually lied down and fell asleep, but… “You can stay here. I will wake you if you have a nightmare.”

“No, I don’t want to.” She sounded like a petulant child but he didn’t point that out because he knew how going back to sleep when you just experienced night terrors could be terrifying. He didn’t know what was waiting for her in her dreams but he would bet it wasn’t more pleasant than the ghosts haunting his. “May I?”

He placed the bottle of liquor in her outstretched hand, a bit unsure if it was the right thing to do. Alcohol was his way of coping but it _was_ destructive, he was aware of that. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to…

He was worrying for nothing though, she just put the bottle on the floor, on her side of the bed. He would have to get up to reach it again. That would require more energy than he had.

“Not nice. What am I going to hug to sleep now?” He wasn’t entirely kidding. He couldn’t even remember the last time he hadn’t held a bottle of liquor at night…

“You can hug me.” she offered. “But I don’t share you with alcohol.”

She uncurled slowly from her position against the headboard and lied down beside him. He was a little surprised when she actually snuggled up to him, resting her head on his shoulder and tentatively placing an arm around his waist. It was odd. And nice. But _odd_. It had been _so long_ since he had just… held someone close…

“I heard they were about to replace District Twelve’s escort.” she said after some time. “They would probably have sent me. I could have been your escort. How strange is that?”

He brushed his fingers through her hair, playing with the curls that always bounced back into place. “Very. Sounds like fate or something.”

“You would have hated me.” She nestled closer, as if afraid he would realize the truth of her statement and push her away.

“Probably.” He half-shrugged. “But you would have hated yourself after a while. You’re not cut to be an escort, Effie, so that’s probably for the best.”

He didn’t need to see her face to know she was scowling. “Escorts have to be glamorous and are responsible for schedules and management. Three things I excel at, thank you very much.”

“Escorts watch tributes die, like all mentors do.” he snapped, harsher than he intended to. “There’s nothing glamorous about that. Some care about their tributes, some don’t, but at some point it always gets personal and either you die a little more with each Games or you stop feeling anything at all. You’re too soft for that job, sweetheart, you would have cared for the tributes. It would have killed you to watch those kids be slaughtered.”

She was silent for some times and then he felt her breathing out slowly. “My father said the same thing.”

“Well, your father is a clever man.” he spat.

Her arm tensed around his waist.

“ _Was._ ” she corrected him quietly. “He’s dead.”

He could feel her shivering, he doubted it was from the cold yet he still maneuvered them until they were mostly covered under the upper blanket.

“How old are you?” she asked “You were sixteen when you won, that makes you either twenty-four or twenty-five. Which is it?”

“A hundred and twenty-four.” he chuckled half-heartedly. It felt like it sometimes… As if a century worth of guilt and memories weighted on his shoulders… “Time flies.”

“Yes, it does…” she sighed. She burrowed her face in his shoulder and he let his head fall against hers, his cheek on her hair and it was perfect. For a glorious, endless second it was perfect. “I have to leave soon, Haymitch. I have been here too long already.” His heart started hammering in his chest in pure utter panic. She must have felt it because her hand came to rest upon his chest, right above his heart. “I wish I had been District Twelve escort. I wish things could have been different.”

He took hold of her hand, squeezing it gently. “You don’t have to go.” He willed his heart to slow down but it kept banging painfully against his ribcage. “Nobody is looking for you here. You could stay.” It was actually doable. Crazy and dangerous and probably _utterly_ _mad_ but doable. He could hide her. And he could pay off anyone who might eventually catch up with what was going on. It could work.

“Haymitch…” she started but he pressed a kiss to her forehead, effectively making her shut up.

“I could protect you.” he swore. “You could stay. No more running, no more fighting. You would be safe.” He didn’t want her out there on her own. He didn’t want to worry about her freezing to death in another snowstorm. He didn’t want to learn through Cray or through a mandatory viewing that she had been caught and executed. He didn’t want her to be in danger. _He didn’t want to lose her_. “Where would you even go? To another District? You can’t keep moving from one to another indefinitely. You will get caught. I don’t even know how you managed to make it that far… Twelve is the end of the line, sweetheart, you may as well stay here.”

She lifted her head a little to see him. “Haymitch, please, don’t do that.” They were so close all he would have to do for their lips to touch was to lean in a little. He could kiss her. He could… “I will never be safe in Panem and you will be in danger while I’m with you.” She closed her eyes. “I have to go for both of our sakes.”

“No.” he protested. “That’s unfair, Effie. You don’t break into people lives, turn everything upside down and then run away. You just… _don’t_.”

“I would never have chosen your house if I had known…” Her hand clenched into a fist, clutching his shirt. “I never felt like this. Not for anyone. And it had to be _you_. It is going to kill me to leave you behind.”

Haymitch closed his eyes and forced himself to relax and think properly. Of all the time to fall in love… Of all the women to fall in love with… “This discussion is premature. You’re still recovering. I’m not letting you leave until you’ve recovered.” He wasn’t letting her leave period if he had anything to say about it. “You don’t even know what you’re going to do. Take some time. We have to plan this, you can’t just…”

She cut in, sadly. “I have a plan. I was only passing through, Haymitch.”

“Passing through?” It didn’t make any sense. “To where?” Twelve only touched two other districts and none of them would be safer for her.

Her head fell back on his shoulder. “Thirteen.”

“What?” He must have heard her wrong because Thirteen… Thirteen was gone. Everybody knew that.

“I know it sounds crazy but…”

He didn’t even let her finish, he extricated himself from under her and propped himself on his forearm to look at her. “Crazy doesn’t even cover it, sweetheart. There’s nothing behind Twelve but wilderness and ruins. _Nothing_.”

She sighed and brushed the tip of her fingers against his cheek. “It’s there, trust me.”

She believed it, he saw it in her eyes. She _actually_ believed that Thirteen was still standing despite all the footage proving the absolute contrary.

“Even if it is, it’s too far away. You won’t make it on your own.” he growled. “Have you any idea how to hunt or find shelter or do anything that doesn’t get delivered to your precious Capitol?”

It was even worse than letting her roam the Districts in fear of Peacekeepers. Wilderness killed as efficiently as any gun, probably more quickly too.

“I will manage.” She forced a smile on her lips. “I’m a fast learner.”

“You are going to die.” It was harsh and cold and he hated himself for the detachment in his voice. It was his mentor voice. It was the way he always spoke to every tribute foolish enough to ask him what would happen in the arena.

She didn’t look too fazed by his macabre prediction. “That’s the only place I will be free. I have to try. I promised I would.”

“Thirteen has been destroyed.” Was she delusional? Had the fever kicked in again? Because there was _no way_ Thirteen could still be there, absolutely no way. “You can’t…”

“I was told there were rebels, there.” she explained. “It’s the only safe place for enemies of the Capitol.”

He licked his lips nervously. Rebels? He had heard of rebels. But it was only a rumor that was going on between victors, nothing real. It was a fleeting hope that someday, somehow, things could change and get better. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, could it? “Who told you that?”

“My father.” She turned her face away from him but he cupped her cheek in his hand and forced her to look at him again. Her blue eyes were shining with tears. “Do you want to hear my story, Haymitch?”


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter is a bit crappy. I'm sorry. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

_Five weeks earlier…_

That day, Effie entered the family house with mixed feelings. She was always happy to go back home but she had a hunch that the luncheon would end with a fight.

Her parents’ home was a little out of town, it was a nice estate of several acres, the house itself was a grand mansion pre-dating the wars. She had been fascinated by its architecture since her young age, she was so passionate about it she had even considered becoming an architect at some point. She often thought that her father wouldn’t have looked down upon that choice of career like he did on her job as a model… And given how their last phone call had gone, he was even less thrilled by her big news.

She could hear her mother ordering the staff about in the dining room so she bypassed the room entirely and headed straight to the double stairs. She caught sight of her sister and her husband in the parlor but she barely took the time to wave at them.

She had a bone to pick with her father.

She stopped in front of the gigantic silver framed mirror that directly faced the stairs and made sure her lovely bubblegum pink wig wasn’t crooked, she batted her long fake eyelashes to make sure they wouldn’t stuck – that new brand did that sometimes and it was embarrassing _every time_ – and finally smoothed her short navy dress. It was a darker color than what she usually chose to wear but her father wasn’t too fond of fashion and found the whole thing ridiculous, this was the only concession she was prepared to make that day. She surveyed her outfit one last time, concluded she looked nice, took a deep breath and marched to her father’s study, her new navy high heeled ankle boots clicking rhythmically on the marble floor. She knocked on the door and waited until he had invited her in to push the door open.

Her father was a small man and her heels always enhanced the height difference, making the whole scene slightly ridiculous. His whole face lightened when he saw her though, and he greeted her with a smile and a hug.

“I’m very crossed with you, Daddy.” she said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Why did you have to go to Agravaine Rumpleton and tell him I wouldn’t be a good choice for an escort?” Agravaine was the head of PR for the Hunger Games and he was the one who had personally contacted her to offer her a job. When she had called him back to accept the position of escort, it had come as a surprise to learn they were reconsidering because of what _her_ _own_ _father_ had to say. “I _told you_ this could be my big break.”

Instead of sitting back behind his desk, her father leaned slightly against it, arms crossed and a sad but stern expression on his face. “And _I_ told _you_ I didn’t want you mixing with that crowd. Once you’re in the Hunger Games, you never get out.” He sighed and shook his head. “This isn’t for you, sweetie, trust me. You may think you will like it but… I know you, you’re going to grow attached to those children and you will be unhappy each time they lose.”

It was an aspect of things she had taken into account before making her decision. She had decided she could handle it. Being an escort was, first of all, all about looking good on television more than anything else. She didn’t need to develop a relationship with each tribute and she didn’t plan to. She wouldn’t stay an escort forever, she would climb the ladder and maybe even end up being the first woman ever to present the Games. She wanted fame and she wanted it now.

“I think you misunderstand what the job entails.” Effie crossed her legs at the ankles and placed her hands on her knees, perfectly lady-like, as her mother had taught her. “If you would just…”

“I am not the one misunderstanding, Effie.” he cut her off, rather rudely. Her mother would have scolded him. “The world out there is dangerous and I’d rather you didn’t run head first into trouble – which you would if you were involved in the Games, I know you, you would want to correct every social injustice and where would that take you I wonder?”

“Social injustice?” she repeated, frowning. “What are you talking about? The Games are fair. The odds…”

“Effie, sweetie…” Her father rubbed his forehead. “You’ve lived a life of privileges since you were born. You’re old enough to know everyone isn’t as lucky, you have to open your eyes at some point.”

“I know that!” she huffed, a tad offended by the way he was speaking to her. She wasn’t a little girl anymore.

“Do you? I wonder sometimes.”

She squirmed a little under his thoughtful gaze. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked her mother for so much money last month… But those new wigs were in fashion, everyone had one, and they were very expensive… Another reason to take the job as an escort : it was really well paid and she could make friends with stylists. “Daddy…”

“What do you think of the situation in the districts?” he asked her. “You want to be an escort, you must have an opinion on the subject.”

“The districts?” she wrinkled her nose in disgust. The districts from what she had seen on television weren’t places she would like to visit. “Well, the tributes are probably very grateful to be able to see the Capitol at least once… They are very lucky.”

The way he turned his head and closed his eyes, you would have thought she had slapped him.

“Lucky? Lucky to be starving? Lucky to live enclosed in fences like giant kennels? Lucky to watch their children die every year?” he spat. She felt really uncomfortable all of a sudden and got up at once to open a window. She saw dust rising in puffs far back on the road, a car was coming to the house. Her father wasn’t done though. “Do you think they deserve that? Do you think the Capitol is fair to them?”

Her mouth felt parched, her gloved hands were shaking on the window handle. “You can’t say things like that, Daddy.” She clenched her fist three times to get rid of the tremor, like she always did to fight stage fright before every fashion show. “The Capitol is essential to the districts. They would die without us.”

“ _We_ would die without _them_.” He looked disappointed in her, so, _so_ disappointed… It was even worse than when she had announced her desire to become a model. “Do you really think that, Effie? Do you really think Panem is a fair place?”

Of course she didn’t think that. Nobody with a brain thought that. But nobody with a brain would say it out loud either. There were rumors about people who had badmouthed the Capitol and who had disappeared, never to be seen again. The districts were a constant danger, they rebelled once, they could do it again so the government kept a close eye on them. It wasn’t fair but she couldn’t do anything about it so she chose not to trouble herself with it.

“I think Mother’s luncheon is probably ready.” she said, turning around to close the window. There were three cars at the end of the lane coming steadily closer. “Are we expecting guests?” The cars were black and sturdy and…

“Oh, god…” Her father was watching through the other window, he was deadly pale. It was as if he had just seen a ghost. “Effie, did anyone see you come in?”

“No…” What an odd question to ask. “I let myself in. I know how Mother likes to order the staff around on Sundays… Well, I did see Domi and…”

“Go to the library.” He ordered her, gripping her arm to drag her to the door. “Hide. You know where.”

She was starting to get scared. “Daddy, what’s going on?”

He didn’t answer but pushed her toward the double doors to the library, while shouting for her mother and her sister. Effie was barely in the room when she heard a crash and some frightened screams. Her father didn’t seem surprised, he just pushed her further and further between the shelves.

“What’s going on?” she asked at last, refusing to move. She heard a piercing yell and she knew without a doubt that it was her sister’s voice. She tried to run for the door, to rush to Domitia – on instinct really, she might be the youngest yet no one ever picked on her big sister if she had anything to say about it – but her father pushed her back. His face was ashen, he looked panicked. “You can’t help her. I’m not even sure _I_ can. Hide, Effie, you have to hide. Whatever you hear, whatever you see, stay there.”

She could hear doors banging open further down the hall and barked orders to search every room. “What’s going on? Who…”

“Peacekeepers.” he said. “I shouldn’t have talked to Rumpleton… They have been unto me for some time now. I’ve been sloppy…”

“I don’t understand _anything_ you’re saying. You’re not making sense.” She could feel herself becoming hysterical. “If they’re Peacekeepers, then we’re safe. All we have to do is…”

His grip on her arm tightened to the point he was actually hurting her. “Run. You have to run.” He shook her a little. “I may not be able to save your sister and your mother but I _can_ _save_ _you_. Listen to me, sweetie, you run, you hear me? You don’t let them catch you.”

The sound of stomping boots was coming closer. Effie’s heart was beating so fast she could swear the library was swirling around her.  

“Go to Thirteen. District Thirteen. Jorna and Hadrian are there.”

Jorna and Hadrian, the names were familiar and foreign at the same time. “They’re dead.” Had her father lost his mind? His brother and his nephew… They died years ago in an accident. “Daddy, they’re dead.”

“They’re rebels.” his father whispered. “You will be safe there. You’re a clever, girl, Effie, you can do it. Don’t trust anyone. Run and never look back.”

“But…”

Another scream from Domitia and he pushed her again. “Go!”

She watched him disappear behind the library doors and half-wanted to go after him but then there was a loud noise, like a gunshot, and more screams, and she turned around and ran to the far end of the room, squeezed between two shelves and felt the wall until she found the catch. The secret door opened as easily as it had always done in her childhood. She had to bend a little at the waist but she managed to lower herself into the passage.

The house _was_ old. No one knew what the gaps between the walls were intended for but they ran all over the house and the estate and had presented hours of amusement and glee to Domi and her. Effie was far from being amused at that point though. She thought it must have been a bad joke. It had to be. Peacekeepers? Rebels? District Thirteen? All those words were swirling into her mind and none of them made sense. She followed the sound of voices to the ground floor living-room, there was no way she could see into the room without betraying her presence but she could hear what was being said as clearly as if she had been in there with them.

She sat on the ground in the dust, not even caring about the state of her dress, and hugged her knees. Someone was shouting at Domi who kept calling her husband but he never, not once, answered her pleas. Her father’s voice was screaming they didn’t know anything and they should leave them alone. More screams, more loud noises and still Domi was crying and accusing someone of having killed her husband but it couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be.

The cacophony was deafening and Domitia’s yelling wasn’t helping Effie make sense of what was happening. And then there was a bang, like a gunshot, and she pressed her forehead against her knees, feeling sick. She waited for Domi to start screaming again but she never did. Her mother however let out a raw and horrible howl that warranted another bang.

She couldn’t breathe. _She_ _couldn’t_ _breathe_. This was a nightmare. This wasn’t happening. This _couldn’t_ be happening. Everything had been so normal that morning. She had got up in her cozy apartment, had chosen her outfit with the same care she always did, had called Cyrelle for two hours and… This was a normal day. This _wasn’t happening._

“There should be another one. The would-be escort spy.” someone said on the other side of the wall. “Where’s she?”

“In town.” Her father sounded breathless. “At her apartment.”

“Negative.” another voice said. “We followed her from there. She’s here, her car is in the lane.”

There was a loud noise and then the first voice shouted again. “Where is she?”

“Safe.” Her father snarled in reply. “Safe from the likes of you!”

There was another bang. Effie nearly let out a whimper but she bit her hand at the last minute.

“Find her.” The voice ordered. “She can’t be far. Shoot on sight.”

Stomping of boots and then silence. How long did she sit there? It felt like hours, she couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but stay there and shake. And then she heard something further down the corridor that made her jump to her feet. _A rat_. Or a Peacekeeper. How long before they’d find her? She couldn’t stay there. She couldn’t… She couldn’t abandon her family.

_She had no family left to abandon._

The thought made her want to throw up but she forced herself to think clearly and to forget what had happened on the other side of the wall. She couldn’t think about that. Not now. Now she wanted to put as much distance as she could between that house – not home, _never_ home again – and her. There were three entrances to the tunnels : one in the library, one in the kitchen and one at the far end of the gardens. The gardens were her best chance.

She started to run, her heart racing in her chest, the tunnel got very narrow and very cluttered with bits and pieces when she finally estimated she was out of the house. Her mother had warned them time and time again not to play in there, the tunnels could collapse she always said. Effie had never been afraid to roam the passages and she was actually glad for the familiar settings.

She finally reached the gardens secret door, her immediate surroundings were deserted so she took her chance and ran towards the outbuilding where her father kept his cars collection. She could hear the Peacekeepers in the distance but they seemed to be around the house and not really on the grounds. The garage was unlocked so she sneaked in and took the first inconspicuous car she could find: black. She had troubles getting it out of the building and she was half-afraid an army of Peacekeepers would storm in but she finally got in on the graveled path.

Except she couldn’t exit by the main entrance.

They were probably watching it. She nearly came undone then, she collapsed on the wheel and started to sob. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to get out of there. She didn’t even know how big the “there” was, it wasn’t just the estate she had to get out from. This was all a _nightmare_. She could get out of there and then… what? _Go to Thirteen. District Thirteen. Jorna and Hadrian are there_. Thirteen didn’t exist. Thirteen was long gone and she didn’t know what her father had done but obviously he had gone crazy some time ago and she hadn’t noticed anything. Maybe she should go to the Peacekeepers and tell them that. Maybe she was making things worse by running away…

_But what about Domi and her mother?_

Perhaps she had misunderstood the situation. Perhaps…

But she hadn’t. She knew she hadn’t. They were dead. They were _dead._

She got the car in reverse and did a U-turn. She couldn’t leave by the main entrance but she could use the trail in the woods. From there she could turn on the main road. And from the main road… _Go to Thirteen. You will be safe there. You’re a clever, girl, Effie, you can do it_. Thirteen… She would never even make it out of the Capitol. Nobody would help her.

By following the path in the woods, she managed to reach the main road but there were Peacekeepers cars _everywhere_. All she could do was act innocent and unconcerned by the various cars she saw going in the direction of her parents’ house. She stayed on the main road, drove at the perfect speed and convinced herself every ten minutes that she was going to get caught at some point and executed on the side of the road before being thrown in a ditch somewhere, like a dog.

But nobody stopped her and she reached the city. Eventually, the car got stuck into traffic and she parked it in the first space she could find, figuring she would be quicker on foot. Her dress was truly beyond repair but she brushed the dust off her wig and walked as if nothing was the matter. She didn’t know she was heading for the train station until she was standing right in front of it. She walked in slowly and wandered about in the midst of people, wondering _what the hell_ to do. Train stations weren’t that frequented in the Capitol, the only places you could go to were the resorts in Four but she would never get there without a ticket and to get a ticket she needed money which she didn’t possess given that her purse was in her car, in her parents’ house front lane – her _dead_ parents’ house front lane. She could feel tears building behind her eyes, exhaustion and fear taking their toll on her body and she walked desperately closer to the platform.

Peacekeepers were everywhere. She had never noticed how many of them were there before. There were at least ten in her sight and probably more where they came from. They were busy supervising a group of people from a district or another who were climbing back into a train after their monthly delivering. There was a lot of them, skinny, wearing tatters… All going back to their district…

She dived into the closest ladies room, wondering if she would really have the nerve to do that. Fortunately it was empty. There wasn’t any time to waste so she didn’t let herself think twice about the whole thing. She washed her smudged make-up away, took off her fake eyelashes, threw her wig and gloves into a bin and tousled her hair. She looked hideous but not as much as the people waiting on the platform, it would have to do, though… Her dress was certainly dirty enough.

Sneaking in the group of district people wasn’t as difficult as she thought. Peacekeepers looked bored and were more busy talking to each other than looking at what was happening. She took one of the big weaved basket people were hauling into the train and hid behind it as much as she could. An old woman kept looking at her but she didn’t call her out and Effie managed to climb on. It had nothing to do with what she was used to. The carriage was clear of seats and people were sitting on the ground, talking softly in small groups. She curled up in a corner and hid her face in her arms until the train moved.

She couldn’t believe what she was doing. She couldn’t believe… She started crying, ugly sobs that wrecked her body… She tried to stop, to calm down, but she couldn’t. People were looking at her now, probably wondering who she was, why she was there… How long before they’d report her to the nearest Peacekeeper? She was half expecting the train to stop but it went on and on… It was night before she knew it. Her stomach grumbled loudly and she blushed but no one was paying attention to her anymore. She overheard some chatters and concluded they were going to Seven. Seven was good. Seven was big enough of a district that he should be able to blend in. She was young, maybe they thought she was doing delivery for the first time. Maybe…

It was nearly dawn when the train began to slow down, people climbed off, laughing and exchanging goodbyes… She followed a little more slowly, looking around her in utter disorientation. Everything was foreign : the trees, the mountains she could see in the distance, the cold wind… Everything else was grey. Grey concrete everywhere. Even the sky looked cloudy, as if it wanted to match the desperate feel emanating from the landscape.

And people were looking at her again, she noticed. The shoes and the dress were going to give her away. Most people were walking towards cars – or what passed for cars in that part of the country – parked in front of the station. Effie walked in the town direction with a confidence she didn’t feel, she kept wandering the streets until she felt the need to sit down. There were no public benches though, nowhere to rest that wouldn’t draw attention, and there were Peacekeepers patrolling. She got rid of her shoes in a bin. The heels would betray her, she figured going barefoot would help her blend in. If she could ever blend in… The navy dress, although probably the plainest dress in her closet, was also catching attention. It was shorter than what women were wearing, obviously of better cut and fabric too… She was _starving_. It had been a day since her last meal and she wasn’t used to that kind of deprivation.

There was nowhere to sit, nowhere to rest, nowhere was safe. So she kept walking until the sky darkened and she felt dizzy with hunger and exhaustion. She collapsed in an alley that had nothing to do with alleys back home. The houses in that part of town were made of wood, it was dirtier, poorer. She was sitting in the mud or in something that looked like mud and she didn’t even care. She felt the laugh building in her chest, it shook her whole body until it morphed into wracking sobs. She was going to die. She was going to die in the mud in District Seven and nobody would be the wiser.

“Hey, there.”

She bolted to her feet when she saw the Peacekeeper standing not two feet in front of her. He was old, white hair falling around his face, kind eyes. Her heart was beating so fast she couldn’t think.

“I’ve never seen you around here before.” he said. “Where do you come from? Where do you live?”

She could run. _But they would know you’re here_ , she thought. Did they know she left the Capitol? Were they already on her tail? She had to think and think fast.

“Behind the hill.” she lied and her voice betrayed her. She saw in his eyes the precise moment he recognized the accent. She stepped back and rose her hands in defense, sure she was about to be attacked. “Please.” she begged. “Please.”

“Kids your age I find around here are usually looking for something to eat.” the man sighed, before rubbing his eyes. “What happened to you, girl? How did you end up in here?”

“Please.” she whispered again, frightened tears rolling down her face.

He frowned and went to grab her arm, she avoided him and tried to run but she was so _dizzy_. She fell. And everything turned black.

When she woke up, she was lying on a shabby couch in a wooden house and the old Peacekeeper was sitting on a chair, looking at her thoughtfully. She was so afraid she scrambled as far from him as she could but he didn’t move, didn’t try to do anything. He just nodded to a loaf of bread on the table next to a bowl. “You should eat.”

Fear and hunger fought a valiant battle in her for a few seconds but hunger was the strongest and she warily approached the table. She was _so hungry_ she forgot everything her mother had taught her and threw herself on the bread and the bowl of cold stew. It wasn’t good by any means but at that moment she could have sworn it was the best dish she had ever tasted.

“Thank you.” she said, at last, ashamed of her poor manners. She didn’t feel safer in his presence though. That man was a Peacekeeper. He wore the uniform. Peacekeepers were her enemies now.

“You can stay here tonight.” he offered. “And tomorrow you can tell me your story and we can figure out a way to help you.” Her eyes shot to the window outside, to the lamps on the table. She had been so focused on the food she hadn’t even noticed it was still night. “It can’t be as bad as you think it is, girl, you’ll see when you’re as old as me.”

He gave her a kind smile, dimmed the lights and went to the only other room in the house, a bedroom – she saw a big bed through the half-opened door. She sat back on the couch, wondering why he hadn’t reported her. He didn’t look threatening. She waited until all noises had died down in the bedroom and then waited some more before standing up again and looking around curiously. There were some faded old photographs on the fireplace’s mantel. A woman and a child. But there was no trace of other people living in the house. Why hadn’t he reported her? He must have understood where she came from… Her accent was a dead giveaway. Perhaps he was just kind. Lots of people were kind.

_Don’t trust anyone_ , her father’s voice reminded her in the back of her head _._

She couldn’t take the risk. She found a basket of laundry in the corner of the room. It repulsed her but her dress was more dangerous than dirty clothes at the moment so she quickly shed the navy dress to put the first pair of pants and the first shirt she found. The Peacekeeper’s belt was hanging from a nail next to the door, she used it to make sure the pants wouldn’t fall off her. There was a pair of boots beside the fireplace. She took them.

She was at the door before she could give herself time to feel guilty.

She didn’t know where she was but she wandered around until she found a particular house she had noticed earlier because of its ugly weathercock. It wasn’t so difficult to find the train station again from there. She hid in the bushes on the other side of the tracks and waited until morning, trying to stay as awake as she could.

The District woke up eventually but there wasn’t any uproar, no one seemed to be concerned about a potential intruder. The old Peacekeeper must have keep her presence a secret. She had to wait until midday to see another train. That one looked shabbier than any she had ever seen so she guessed it wasn’t coming from or going to the Capitol anytime soon. Men loaded up heavy-looking lump of wood but they didn’t climb on the train like they did for the Capitol delivery. It made sense, she supposed, it limited movement and contact between Districts.

Once again, the Peacekeepers looked bored and they were more busy chatting between themselves than actually keeping watch on who was doing what on the platform. She had to get out of this District, so she took her chance, she sneaked in one of the cars and hid behind a stack of wood. She soon heard the heavy door being shut close and the train’s engine roaring to life. She allowed herself to relax. She needed to keep herself together.

_Go to Thirteen. District Thirteen._

North-east. She had to head north-east, get to Twelve and from there… From there, what? Assuming she even managed to get to Twelve… What would she do? Roam the woods like a madwoman? Did she have a choice in the matter? It seemed every time she closed her eyes, the sound of gunshots boomed in her ears. Domi’s voice, her mother’s…

She would get to Twelve and from there, she would get to Thirteen. One problem at a time. She had to act with method. She was good at that: planning. First thing in order was to find food, then a place to stay for the night and after that she had to keep hopping on trains going north. If all Peacekeepers in the District were that careless, it wouldn’t be that hard.

But, as she soon discovered, all Peacekeepers weren’t that careless.

The screeching of the train coming to a stop woke her up rather abruptly. It wasn’t long before the door slid open, letting in a cacophony of voices and animals’ mooing and lowing. Livestock. _Ten_. She was in Ten. She could hear someone trying to bring order; she peeked around the stack of wood, the platform was in utter chaos. Cows, pigs, people coming and going and… On the left, a peacekeeper entering and exiting each car after a cursory glance inside. _She was going to be found_. She panicked and tried to jump from the train, praying that nobody would pay attention to her. Her shirt got stuck on a branch sticking out from a log and she had to turn around to free it with frantic fingers.

“You!” Someone violently grabbed her arm and she barely had time to see the white of a Peacekeeper uniform before she was flung out of the train and unto the platform. The drop was short but the landing was painful, she tried to break the fall with her hands, she only ended up with scratched palms and knees for her troubles. Fortunately for her, the platform wasn’t made of concrete. She was sprawled on grass and dirt. “Nobody get on the train before we’ve checked the contents. You know the rules!”

“Cut her some slack, if you checked the car with any semblance of order we could keep track of what had been checked or not.” Another voice shouted out over the small commotion her fall had caused. Hands helped her up and guided her further into the crowd while, behind her, the man who had come to her defense, obviously the one in charge of deliveries, argued with the Peacekeeper.

Someone asked her if she was new, if she had come from The Willows with the other ranchers. She had absolutely _no idea_ what they were talking about so she only nodded and let them bring her to some of the bovines. When a woman handed her a rope attached to an actual real cow, instructing her to take care of it until they could get it on the train back to Seven, her eyes grew wide. She had never, in all her life, seen a living cow – nor pigs or goats and they were all around her. She was afraid the cow would notice her terror and try to run her over but it was really well-behaved. It mostly chew on the grass and watched her with a puzzled look. At some point, someone released her from the cow and gave her another task. People were so focused on what they were doing with animals they didn’t seem to notice she didn’t know what she was doing or that she was careful to give only short answers.

The day was long and hot but bottles of water were passed around and, when the train was finally loaded up, someone lighted a camp fire. She should have left to find somewhere safe to hide until the next train but women had come from town with food for the workers and she couldn’t say no to the plate someone put in her hands. She understood quickly that people lived in small communities, in different ranches, and didn’t always know each other. Big district. Her luck. Their southern accent was hard to decipher for her but she managed to understand they expected a delivery from Four the following week and were supposed to send a shipment back. A whole week to wait and Four wasn’t even close to Twelve. What choice did she have but wait though? She inspected her hands in the flickering light of the fire: her nails, usually so lovingly polished, were all broken. Like her, she couldn’t help but think. None of her friends would have recognized her if they could have seen her : she was covered in dust, sweat and other things she didn’t want to venture on.

Her week in Ten wasn’t as terrible as she thought it would be. There were big barns all around, fields with stacks of hay… Places to rest for the night were easy to find. She also became quite the expert at stealing vegetables and fruits from gardens and properties. The guilt was heavy. People in Ten might have had a great livestock, but they never ate meat and food was scarce. She was relieved to see the train from Four arriving. People had gotten used to seeing her wandering around but they were beginning to ask questions. She helped unload the few iceboxes full of fish and made sure to be the last in the car when the two cows and the three goats were forced to board the train. She hid behind the heap of hay, the Peacekeeper who glanced lazily in the car before shutting the door didn’t see her.

Getting off the train was equally easy, sneaking around had become second nature by then. _Too_ _easy_. She grew too comfortable. She stole food when and where she could, shellfish washed away on the shore mostly. An old woman with a toothless smile took pity on her one day and taught her how to open them with a big stone.

It was her third day in Four and she had just caught word that a train for Eleven would be departing two days later when she saw the knife. The docks were always swarming with fishermen, people gutting fish or loading trucks with seafood products. The fisherman was busy putting his day catch in one of these huge buckets full of ice when the rope tightening his boat to the dock broke and he had to dive into the water before the tide could carry it too far away. His knife had been left behind. Most people were pointing at him, yelling their support as he swam towards his boat but Effie only saw the knife. _Weapon_. The need for a weapon had never arisen before that moment but she didn’t think twice before snatching it away in the huge pocket of her baggy pants. She had never stolen anything in open sight before and she walked away from the dock in fear of having been caught.

She felt safer once in the narrow streets. She felt the glee of having gotten away with such a stunt. Nobody cared, nobody was paying attention… She felt as if she could get away with anything so during the next days she grew bolder. _Careless_. The morning before the train was due to depart for Eleven, she realized that the weather was getting colder and that it would only get worse the further north she went. She knew a place where houses were small and where laundry was always floating about in the wind, strapped to clotheslines… She just had enough time before she needed to sneak into the train, so she nicked one of the heavy looking fisherman jackets hanging there. She was four back alleys away when someone called for her to stop.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The Peacekeeper sneered. He was ugly, small cruel eyes and a bundle of black hair crowning a bald skull. “You know what happens to thieves, girl?”

She ran. What else could she do but run? She was quick but he was quicker and she didn’t get far before he caught her by the arm. She struggled to get free, he lifted his gun and swung it down on her face, rear end first. Her vision flashed white for a second and she tasted blood from where she had bitten her cheek. She collapsed on the ground.

“Stupid chick.” he cursed, grabbing her arm again to pull her up. “You’re under arrest.”

No. _No_. She had not gotten _that_ far only to be arrested for a petty theft. They weren’t going to kill her like they did her family. They _weren’t_. She wasn’t going to die. She _didn’t_ _want_ to die. When she clutched the knife in her pocket and slammed it down in his neck, it was to the echo of Domi’s voice roaring with despair in her mind. The man let her arm go and fell down. The gurgling noise was terrible and it followed her when she ran away. The blade was covered in blood and she threw it away before going back to pick it up with shaking hands. She needed the weapon. She needed…

_Go to Thirteen. District Thirteen._

The train. She had to get onto the train. The news a Peacekeeper had been stabbed was on everyone’s lips when she finally got to the train station. It was sickening how easier it made it for her to hide on the train. There were only two Peacekeepers at the station, all the others had gone to investigate the assault. At least he wasn’t dead, she told herself again and again, while the train weaved around, at least he was just wounded. She wasn’t a killer.

Yet she had gone for the kill.

She had stabbed at the throat because she knew it would be serious enough for him to let her go, she had watched enough Games to know. _She had gone for the kill_. Her cheek was throbbing badly but she didn’t even care. She almost welcomed the pain, it was a reminder that she was human.

Eleven was the hardest District to blend in. Her cream white skin made her stand out compared to the dark skin of most people. It was cold. People were miserable. It was the worst District so far. It didn’t take her long to understand that trains didn’t stop there that often. Finding food was hard and she was more careful after what happened in Four. All in all, most days she was starving along with the rest of the District. She wondered if it was a cosmic punishment for the carefree way she had always lived her life before…

It took _days_ before a train finally stopped by on its way to Twelve and it was only for fuel. She got from a conversation between two locals that coal often came from Twelve but that nothing much went their way. It was the poorest District. There were more Peacekeepers than usual at the train station; they remained next to the train, watching carefully anyone who stepped too close. She knew she would never be able to get on board the usual way. So she waited and waited for an opportunity that never came. When the train engine switched on, some of the Peacekeepers scattered around, talking about waste of time and how it was such a chore to search the trains… It was a long shot but she was used to that by now. She sneaked behind their back and huddled on the small platform between two cars, clutching at the safety rails, just as the train started to make its slow way out of the station. She had never done that before but it seemed less dangerous, somehow, than trying to open a door and get inside.

It only grew worse as the train gained speed. She was tossed about and all she had for her safety was the guardrail she was crouched against. The cold was sharper and the wind caused by the train rushing through woods and flatlands only made it worse. Soon, the landscape was covered in white. Snow. It never snowed in the Capitol. She _hated_ snow. She couldn’t feel her hands anymore so she threw caution to the wind and let go of the safety barrier to thrust them in the pocket of her jacket. She knew falling asleep would be dangerous but it really wasn’t a problem given how afraid she was of tumbling overboard at every sharp turn the train took. The coat of snow on the ground seemed to only grew thicker with time.

How long had it been ? Hours? It felt like days. She couldn’t tell. She was freezing, shivering and delirious in her terror to fall. When the train started to slow down she suddenly got very afraid. She couldn’t stay there. They would see her as soon as they entered the District. She was lost if she stayed.

But where could she go? Where could she hide? There was no way to get inside one of the cars from there. There was nothing she could do except… She excluded the idea at once but her mind insisted it was the only possible option. The snow was deep, the train had slowed enough that it wasn’t _so_ risky. Who was she kidding? It _was_ risky. It was the stupidest riskiest thing she had ever thought about doing until that very moment. But did she have a choice? She seemed to ask herself that question a lot those last few weeks.

Standing up was more difficult than she had expected, her legs had fallen asleep under her and it took all she had to slam her fist into them until they regained feeling. She nearly tripped stepping above the railing, the train was going slower but not slow enough. The snow was deep, she reminded herself, it would cushion her fall. She would be okay. More okay, in any case, than if a Peacekeeper saw her there and shot her without any question asked.

She couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t let go of the railings. She couldn’t…

Her right hand slipped and she had to chose between slamming against the train side or let go.

She let go and free fell, back first, arms and legs flapping uselessly in the air. For a moment, she felt like she was flying. For a glorious, painless second, there was nothing but the white sky loaded with heavy grey clouds and she was flying. And then her leg sunk into the snow while her whole body collapsed the other way, her knee twisted rather violently, but that didn’t stop her from rolling on the ground like her body couldn’t get away from the train fast enough. She rolled down a slope, the snow was thinner, and sharp stones clawed at her flesh despite the heavy jacket.

By the time the world stopped twirling around her, her whole body was in pain. She rolled on her back and watched the sky, panting for breath. Nothing was broken, she thought with relief, after having checked her leg. Her knee was probably sprained but she could deal with a sprain. Her back however… The jacket was in tatters and her fingers came away tainted with blood. Not good. She put the jacket back on and limped to the shelter of the woods nearby. She didn’t want to walk in the open in case of passing hovercrafts. She followed the train tracks from afar, dragging her injured leg in the snow and keeping her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket just in case.

It took her almost two long hours before she caught sight of Twelve. She went further into the woods, praying that no wild beast would try to prey on her – even if, at that moment, she was hungry enough that she would take her chance with any edible animal – and wandered around until she could see the electric fence. How was she going to pass the fence? Did she even want to? She had found Twelve… All she had to do was going north until she stumbled unto Thirteen.

But she needed food.

If she really wanted a chance to reach Thirteen, she needed food and better clothes. She had to find a place where she could steal all that. It almost made her smile as she hiked near the border of the forest, still following the fence in the distance, it was sort of funny how she couldn’t even remember how long ago everything had started. She thought about the old Effie, the Effie who had worn wigs and pretty dresses and whose only worry had been to know if she should chose apple nail polish or ruby red, and she nearly laughed at the stupidity of it all. It felt like another life, a life that wasn’t hers. Night was falling when she found what she was looking for. A hole in the fence, at ground level, she crept closer warily, it was at the foot of a hill and she could see houses – big solitary houses – looming in the distance.

She dug through the snow, trying to see if she could slither under that. It was supposed to be electrified but she couldn’t hear the familiar buzz of electricity. Better safe than sorry, the jacket had to go, she made sure it was in the woods, out of sight, before limping back to sneak into Twelve. Her shirt got caught in the wire but she pulled, not caring about the tear in the fabric. She got up in Twelve, feeling strangely victorious.

_Still alive_ , she thought.

She rummaged the snow until the blood spatters she had left behind had disappeared and then she limped up towards the houses. In the dark, it looked almost like a small village but it seemed deserted. Houses were in a state of disuse and neglect which, really, was perfect for her. She needed to get warm - she was damp with snow - and get some rest if she could. She chose the most isolated house, thinking, that way, she would be able to hear people coming up to the village. The back door gave easily under her pushing : it was unlocked, all the better.

The kitchen was littered with dust and empty bottles, whoever that house had belonged to hadn’t bothered cleaning up before leaving. They might have left something behind for her to use. Clothes, gear… Anything, really. Clothes were her priority she decided. She was _so_ _tired_ … She crept out of the kitchen and into the corridor, the house smelt faintly like decay and the silence had an unnatural feeling to it but she told herself not to be stupid – of course, the house wasn’t haunted, she wasn’t a child to believe such things. She went up the stairs and to the first bedroom she could find, there were more bottles lying around and clothes too. People must have left in a hurry. One of the bottles was still full, a sniff confirmed it was alcohol so she soaked her snow soiled shirt with that and dabbed at the cuts on her shoulder, she tried to reach the one on her back but it wasn’t easy. She put on the first shirt she found in the closet and collapsed on the bed, not even bothering to properly get under the cover.

She didn’t know what woke her up, she opened her eyes lazily, wondering why her body was hurting all over, until she remembered the train and everything else.

“Please, tell me you’re at least eighteen.”  

There was a man looking at her. Dirty blond hair framing a scowling face, cloudy grey eyes, broad shoulders… She bolted from the bed and flattened herself against the wall, forgetting her leg and her back in the process. When she reached the wall she was already panting in pain and in fear. The man – not really a man, he looked only a few years older than her but it didn’t make him less of a threat – stepped closer and she instinctively stepped back, except there was no possibility of retreat. She had been reckless. She should have checked the house before assuming it was empty. She should have made sure there were no neighbors.

He rose his hands slowly and pointed at her face. “Did I do that?”

There was concern and even disgust on his face and she shook her head no, wondering what sort of man needed to ask that question. Did he make a habit of hitting women and then forgetting about it?

The following conversation was a sort of blur. He kept taunting her and she kept snapping back, all the while knowing she should just go, rush past him, threaten him with her knife maybe… But it wasn’t until he actually said he would take her back to the train station that she felt the need to pull out the knife – she couldn’t get the last time she had used it out of her mind, she just… _couldn’t_. She didn’t want to be that kind of person.

Hitting him was pure reflex though, really. And _he_ had been the one attacking her, so she didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry when she ran out of the house. It was snowing and the snow was deep, there was no escape in sight, her back was hurting and so was her leg; she sneaked into another house, making sure _that one_ was absolutely empty, and waited by the upper window, watching the streets.

She didn’t know what she was waiting for exactly.

For the man to fetch Peacekeepers, perhaps. Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest when she saw him leaving his house because she was sure that was it. How many Capitol girls were running away from District to District? They would know it was her. They would know and they would shoot her on sight and she could hear Domi’s voice in her head followed by the gunshot and her mother’s scream and another gunshot and it played over and over again until that train of thoughts was broken by the sight of the stranger leaving a knife on a rock near the entrance of the oddly empty little village. His intents were obvious.

She swiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks and went out as carefully as she could just in case it was a trap. But it wasn’t. He had left a hunting knife for her, it was better and probably more useful than the little one she had stolen. He wouldn’t report her. Snow was falling hard so she retreated to her new house with her precious gift tucked in her belt.

She hated snow and her hatred only grew in the few hours after that when a real blizzard started rattling the windows and the doors of her shelter. She was freezing despite being inside.

How could she hope to reach Thirteen in that weather?

She tracked the light of the lamptorch flickering in the street with her eyes as the man roamed from house to house before he gave up and went back home. She saw him dropping something on the back door porch.

_Don’t trust anyone_.

There was absolutely nothing to eat in her shelter, she was freezing and she knew, with certainty, she couldn’t light a fire for fear of being found. It was clear that the man was the only inhabitant of this strange deserted village. People would notice two smoking chimneys… And even if she had been desperate enough to risk it, she wasn’t sure she would know how to start a fire without burning the whole house down. If the man had not turned her in by now he probably wouldn’t…

_Don’t trust anyone._

Curiosity killed the cat, as they said, but she didn’t feel very catlike when she fought against the wind to reach his house. There was a woolen blanket and some food on the doorstep. She took the whole package and went back to her hiding place. She devoured the food in a matter of minutes and then arranged the blanket in a nest that would keep her warm enough. The night was cold but bearable.

The next day was worse. The wind had died down but the temperature were getting lower and lower. She could see ghostly vapor each time she took a breath. She was going to die, she knew it. The man must have known it too because she heard him starting his search anew.

_Don’t trust anyone._

The storm began mid-afternoon, by nightfall it was raging on. She was freezing. The blanket wasn’t enough.

_Don’t trust anyone_.

Sometimes, you had to take a leap of faith. It was a matter of choice once again, or rather, of not having a choice. He had a fire, his house would be warm. She had nothing and she would be dead by morning.

The short trip from the house she was hiding in to his was enough to drench her clothes and the blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders. She knocked on the back door but the wind was too strong for her to be heard so she let herself in. It _was_ warm, hot even, and it was _paradise_. She followed the noise to the living-room.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” He was sitting next to the fire and turned to her slowly, there was a twinkle in his eyes and the ghost of a smile on his lips. The light of the fire projected strange shadows on his face. He was handsome. Not like a man from the Capitol could ever hope to be handsome but there was something raw under the bitterness of his smirk : a strength, a roughness that was tugging at strings she didn’t know she had. There was kindness in his eyes too. _Concern_.

She wasn’t thinking all that clearly, her teeth were chattering and she was shivering more and more strongly by the minute but she knew that man would be the end of her. She had come that far, she had succeeded in escaping the Capitol, but as she looked into his grey eyes, she felt as if she had fallen into another trap, even more vicious and dangerous.

She promised herself she would leave as soon as she could. The second the snow stopped, she was out of there. Somehow, he didn’t seem like the kind of man one would want to leave behind once you had gotten to know him.


	7. Chapter 6

Haymitch stared at her in silence long after she had stopped talking. He didn’t know what to say to prevent the tears rolling freely down her cheeks nor did he know how to comfort her. What she had been through… He could say he was sorry, because he _was_ , but what good would it make? It certainly never helped him.

When she turned away from him and curled up in a ball, he knew he had remained silent for too long. He placed a hand on her shoulder but she only withdrew further. “Do I repel you?” her voice was a mumble because of the fist she had pressed against her mouth in an attempt to quiet her sobs. “I may very well be a killer after all.”

“You’re no killer.” He lied back down and wrapped an arm around her waist, spooning her.

“I tried to kill that man in Four.” She gave up on trying to stop her tears. “I tried to kill you too. I’m afraid of what I could do.” The sobs wrecked her body so violently it had to be painful. “I’m afraid of… I…”

“Shhh…” he hushed her, hugging her tighter. “Cry. Let it all out.”

She did. She cried and cried until he was sure she was about to pass out from exhaustion and he just held her. He didn’t make false promises, he didn’t tell her time would heal her wounds, he didn’t lie and say everything would be okay because the sun _never_ looked brighter in the morning no matter how many times you told yourself it would. He just held her and got that little bit angrier at the Capitol.

When she finally had no tears left to cry anymore, she turned around so he rolled on his back and let her snuggle against him like she had done before, her head tucked under his chin and a hand on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.

“My family…” she whimpered. “They’re… They’re _dead_. They _murdered_ them.”

Her voice was resentful and slightly incredulous and he wondered if she had said any of that out loud before that night. It felt more definitive after you had said it aloud for the first time, he was painfully familiar with the process.

“You’re alive, sweetheart.” He arranged the covers back over them. It was getting chilly. The fire must have died downstairs. “You have to focus on that. It won’t make it any easier but… What is it you said to me? You have a duty to keep fighting.”

“Yes…” she breathed out against his neck. “Run and never look back.” The way she said that, it seemed to have a deeper meaning for her but it was also full of regrets and Haymitch’s heart started racing again.

“Run. To Thirteen.” He tried to force his body to relax, not to let her know how disturbing that thought was to him but she perceived his tension all the same.

“Thirteen will be safe.” she said “My uncle and my cousin…”

“Your _very much dead for years_ uncle and cousin?” he cut in. “Look, sweetheart, I’m not saying your father didn’t know what he was talking about but… Thirteen is a long shot.” It was too huge to be believed. The Capitol would never allow that. If Thirteen was still standing, where were the people? Those would-be rebels? Because he was sure that the Capitol wouldn’t allow them to roam freely. The Capitol wouldn’t rest until they were destroyed and if there weren’t any bombings on Thirteen anymore, it probably was because they were already dead.

“I never would have thought Peacekeepers would try to kill me… What I saw in the Districts… They never talk about that in the Capitol. They lie to us. They minimize the truth. They said Thirteen is gone, but…” She scrambled up a little, until she could rest her head on the pillow to be able to look at him. “Why would I take their word over my father’s? I trust my father. The hope that Thirteen is real is all I have left.”

He turned on his side to face her without letting go of her - he didn’t think he could do that even if he tried. “It doesn’t have to be.” He brushed the hair out of her face, letting his fingers trail lightly on the fading bruise on her cheek. He hoped that Peacekeeper was dead. He would never tell her because, clearly, the idea of possibly having killed someone distressed her but he hoped that man was rotting in hell. “You could stay here. I could protect you. You’d be safe.”

 _Would she?_ There was a little voice nagging at the back of his mind, saying he was being selfish. He could hide her. He could pay off anyone who would guess what he was doing. He could do _a lot_ of things. But would she be safe? Could he actually hide someone from the Capitol long term? He was a victor, once or twice a year for the rest of his life he would be in the spotlight. That meant more danger for her to be discovered.

“But I won’t be free.” Her eyes begged him to understand. “I can’t live my life in fear of being found out and captured, Haymitch. I _can’t_.”

“Even if it’s real, even if Thirteen is really there… You won’t make it.” he said. She opened her mouth to object but he put his hand on her lips so she would let him finish. “I’m not trying to be mean, sweetheart, I’m actually pretty impressed by everything you did, but… It’s winter and trying to survive out there is very different from hiding or sneaking around.” She touched his wrist softly and he put his hand back on her waist. “Trying to reach Thirteen is suicide.”

“When I left my parent’s house I thought I was going to my death.” She sighed. “And I’m terrified of… That’s just it, don’t you see?” She was so earnestly convinced by what she was saying he didn’t know how to make her change her mind. “I can’t keep being terrified. I will reach Thirteen or I won’t but I’m not staying here, waiting for them to shoot me down. I can’t let fear dictate my life.”

He closed his eyes because he knew nothing he could say would keep her in Twelve. He could understand her point; really, he could but… it didn’t change the fact that her plan was doomed from the start. She wouldn’t reach Thirteen. He wasn’t even sure _he_ could reach Thirteen. Either way, when she would leave he would never see her again and that had been so stupid of him to have grown to care for her… Who was she to him, this girl? _No one_. Just a stranger in the snow. He had fallen quickly and hard and he wasn’t one to believe in love at first sight but… There was something about her. Something that felt a little too much like destiny for his taste.

“Haymitch, don’t…” Her hand brushed his face, ghost-like fingers that floated from his temple to his chin before cupping his cheek. She was so close he could feel her breath on his lips, they were tingling and he knew without having to open his eyes that she was contemplating kissing him. “If I stay and something happens to me you will blame yourself and if something happens to _you_ it will kill me. It’s better if I go now, don’t you see?”

“I really don’t.” He had trouble swallowing because he was right and she was glancing at his lips every so often. “At least wait a few weeks until the snow clears out.”

Her eyes were sad when they met his. “The more I wait, the harder it will be.”

“The safer it will be for you in the woods.” he argued. “If you really want to do this, at least be sensible about it.”

She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I don’t know.”

“Ten.” he said softly. “You don’t want to go.”

“It’s not about making a choice but about not having any.” She pulled the covers up from where they pooled around their waists.

“There’s a third option.” He let the hand resting on her hip slide to her back.

She frowned slightly. “I’m all ears.”

“Yeah, see…” he smirked. “I haven’t found it yet.” Her smile was small but it was a smile nonetheless so he counted that as a victory. “I want to kiss you.”

“I want you to kiss me.” she confessed in a whisper. “But…”

“Yeah.” He understood. He felt the urge to kiss her but, at the same time, he knew he wouldn’t stop at a kiss and he also knew there would be no return from that. He wanted everything or nothing because once he had a taste of her, he wouldn’t be able to let go. “Best not.”

“We should try to sleep.” she suggested. “We can wake each other up when we have a nightmare.”

“Sounds fun.” he snorted. “Not really what I had in mind when I told you my bed was always open for you. Can I have my alcohol back?”

“Do you really need it?” She would give it back if he asked, that was surprising. She had a way to make him want to drink less despite the looming threat of nightmares and bad memories.

“Nah.” He waved the question away. “Got you, don’t I?”

“Ten.” Her smile was soft and caring and he thought, quite absurdly, that he would never have a nightmare again if she could smile at him that way every night. “You’re secretly very soppy.”

“Only for you, sweetheart.” he winked. “Only for you…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit shorter than usual but the last one was veeery long ;) Let me know what you think!


	8. Chapter 7

“Do you think she could make it?” Haymitch asked, leaning against the outside wall of the shed. He had taken advantage of the Everdeens’ visit to take the man aside under the pretense of getting some more logs inside while his wife checked Effie’s wounds. Haymitch’s explanations had been sparse but truthful, he had told him of her plan to go as far as Thirteen because he wanted his honest opinion. Haymitch could survive in the wild if he needed to, he had done so before, in the arena, but, of the two of them, Everdeen, in his opinion, was the expert.

Everdeen piled the last log on the stack of wood they were planning on getting inside and wiped his hands thoughtfully. “So far? In winter?” The man winced. “I really don’t know. Does she know how to hunt? Find shelter?”

Haymitch shrugged. “I would say no. But she’s clever.”

“Clever won’t make a difference if she can’t find food.” Everdeen pointed out. “It would be easier in spring. Don’t get me wrong, it would still be near impossible, but… she wouldn’t have to worry about freezing to death or hunting. There would be berries and plants. I could show her.”

“Right.” he sighed. “She doesn’t want to wait.”

That was a conversation he had had several times with her since the night she had finally come clean about what had happened to her. She kept talking about leaving and he kept telling her to wait some more. She didn’t want to go, he knew that much, so, she relented. But it wouldn’t last forever. One day he was going to wake up to an empty house.

“Is she afraid of being caught?” Everdeen asked, sitting on the stack of wood. “Because in my opinion she’s safe enough here. Nobody suspects a thing and, as far as I can tell, nobody is looking for her.”

It wasn’t entirely true. He had run into Cray at the Hob the day before and the Head Peacekeeper had asked him again if he hadn’t seen a stranger in the District. It had only taken the offer of a drink for the man to spill everything he knew, mainly that the Capitol was breathing down the neck of every Peacekeeper in every District to find her. But Cray didn’t believe she could have gone that far and he wasn’t bothering with real search parties.

“She’s…” He trailed off, not knowing how to explain what was going on in that head of hers without revealing her whole back story. He trusted Everdeen to a certain degree but he didn’t want to betray her confidences. “She wants to be free.”

“Even if that means going to her death?” The man asked with a frown.

“There’s freedom in death, I suppose.” Haymitch replied quietly, avoiding Everdeen’s eyes. That was something he had learned too late, after the arena. He had wanted to live _so badly_ at the time, to get free from the Capitol, but now… Now he knew the truth. Freedom wasn’t for victors. Once in the arena, always in the arena.

“Are you going to go with her?”

Haymitch startled and stared at the man he didn’t dare call a friend but was slowly starting to consider thus. He had never even entertained the thought of leaving Twelve behind. That was…

“No.” he told Everdeen as much as he told himself.

Leaving Twelve wasn’t a possibility. She could make it undetected, he couldn’t. At some point, the Capitol would realize he had escaped and then they would move heaven and earth to find him. It would be even more dangerous for her, not to mention that he still thought it was suicide. “No.”

“Why not? You love her.” Everdeen accused with knowing eyes. “You know how to survive in the woods. She would have a chance with you.”

“She won’t have a chance when hovercrafts find me and bring me back here.” he spat, not bothering to correct his assumptions. The hunter was there more often than not lately, and there was no hiding the longing in Haymitch’s eyes when he looked at her. “She will be dead and I will be back to the hell pit. There’s no getting out of this circus, Everdeen, Maysilee was lucky in that aspect.”

He had aimed to hurt or even anger the man with that jibe but Everdeen only folded his arms on his chest. “You’re afraid to hope.”

“There is _no_ hope.” Haymitch rubbed his eyes tiredly. He was itching for a drink but he was trying to stop or at least really slow down while she was still there. She hated when he drank. “I thought you would know that.”

“There’s Thirteen apparently.” Everdeen pointed out, “Do you think it’s true? Could it _be_ true?”

“I heard rumors of rebels before, there’s whispers of that between victors.” Haymitch confessed, rummaging the snow with his boot. “But never of Thirteen and I’m not sure I believe it. It’s too big, too… If there are rebels, I doubt they’re in Thirteen.”

“But Effie believes it. She’s sure of it?” There was a calculating glint in Everdeen’s eyes. Something that looked like a sort of tamed hope.

“What, you want to take off too, now?” Haymitch scoffed.

“If it wasn’t for Katniss, I think we would take our chances.” The man answered. “But not with the baby, no.”

Haymitch shook his head. “You’re as mad as Effie. There’s nothing there but ruins.”

“Sometimes, you have to take a leap of faith.” he replied.

~0~

“Here you go.” the healer said with a smile, tugging Effie’s shirt back down. “Your cuts are healed and the bruises are almost gone. You’re as good as new, take it easy on the knee though.”

Effie smiled and tucked the blue shirt back into her pants. The blue shirt she had stolen from Haymitch that first night was her favorite and she wore it as often as she could – she had actually taken it on herself to do the laundry because it was obvious he wouldn’t but she had forced him to clean up the house a little, arguing that she wasn’t his housekeeper. Aster – Everdeen’s wife had insisted that she called her by her first name – scooped the baby from the middle of Effie’s bed and rocked the little girl slowly to stop her fussing.

Effie offered her something to drink and they made their way downstairs to the kitchen. Haymitch and Everdeen were still nowhere to be seen but Aster waved her worry away, declaring that they were probably chatting. The woman watched her like a hawk as Effie opened cupboard after cupboard to prepare their tea. She had been surprised and delighted when Haymitch had come back from town with it a few days earlier. It was nothing like the fine brands her mother used – _had_ _used_ – more like a clutter of leaves and even some pieces of bark but it was good nonetheless and it helped soothe her nerves.

“You feel at home, here.” Aster observed, still rocking Katniss. The baby’s tiny fingers were playing with a strand of her mother’s hair. It was the first time she had brought her daughter when she stopped by to check on her but she had talked about her so often Effie felt as if she knew her already. “Haymitch is good to you.”

She could feel the blush slowly creeping on her cheeks so she turned her back in the pretense of pouring the tea into two mugs. “He’s… nice.”

“Only nice?”

She could hear the teasing smile in Aster’s voice so she gave up on her act and went to sit at the kitchen table before sliding a mug in front of her. “Kind.” she added. “Thoughtful. Caring. Loving.”

Aster’s laugher made her blush increase. “Oh, you’re in deep.”

“You’re one to talk.” Effie rebuked gently, because there was no way to ignore how in love the Everdeens were. She leaned in to stroke Katniss’s tiny hand, the baby closed her fist around her finger and she was amazed by how strong her grip was. She looked so frail, so breakable.

“Do you want to hold her?” Aster suggested.

“Oh, no!” she refused, gently extracting her finger from the baby’s grasp. “I’ve never done that. I wouldn’t know how. I don’t want to hurt her.”

“You won’t hurt her. Here.” In a matter of seconds, the baby was transferred in her arms. A precious weigh in the crook of her elbow. She rocked her experimentally and the baby babbled happily. “Do you want children?” Aster asked.

The question took her by surprise. She had never given any thought to children or, rather, the possibility was so far remote in her future that she hadn’t bothered thinking about it, she had wanted a career first and foremost. But it was different there, she supposed. Women got married and had children, men went to the mines… There was no real opportunity for careers and self-development. She had gathered as much from Haymitch.

Did she want children?

“I don’t think so.” Not in the world they were living in. Not when they could be killed as easily as… Domi’s screams filled her head but she focused on the baby and they went away. “I couldn’t bear to see them hurt and I don’t see how I could protect them from everything happening out there.”

“I felt the same way.” Aster confessed, taking a sip of her tea. “And then I became pregnant and I could never regret having her, but sometimes… I can’t help but think she could get reaped one day. I don’t know how…”

Effie lowered her eyes on the baby in shame. She understood what her father had said now, about how unfair life was in the Districts. She felt ashamed for having enjoyed the Games once, for never having realized that the tributes were someone’s daughter and someone’s son. _Children_. The idea that the small baby she was holding could one day be sent to fight for her life in an arena was… “I’m sorry.” Sorry she didn’t understand it before, sorry she had to go through so hard an awakening to get it into her thick skull, sorry that she couldn’t help.

Aster sipped her tea in silence for several minutes but didn’t acknowledge her apology, she only shrugged. “Life is what it is. Fate deals the cards, all we can do is do our best.” A small smile played on her lips. “Speaking of best… You’ve done a number on Haymitch. I can’t quite believe it. Sober, clean and smiling more often than not… You work miracles.”

It should have delighted her but Effie felt her anxiety go up a notch. She knew she had an impact. The man she had first met had been bitter and determined to drown in his anguish but now… Now he was more relaxed. Still bitter, still broken – and that was alright because so was she – but less on edge, less… _haunted_. He was slowly letting himself forget that he was a victor and she was afraid – so, _so_ afraid – of what would happen to him once she left.

_If_ she ever left.

Each time, she talked about it, he advised her to wait and, each time, she yielded to his arguments because it was easier to pretend her decisions were logical rather than purely sentimental. Truth was, she didn’t want to go. She had stopped running for too long, she had grown comfortable, she had made friends, she had learned to know Haymitch and she was about to settle for a life as a stowaway. She could feel herself on the edge of settling for this life and it frightened her.

“What’s wrong?” Aster frowned with concern, placing a comforting hand on her arm. “I didn’t mean to upset you…”

Effie cradled Katniss closer, stroking the baby’s cheek and letting her play with her finger.

“I think I love him.” she confessed softly. At that second, she missed Domitia so fiercely it felt like someone was stabbing her in the heart. She missed her parents too, of course, but Domi had always been her confident when it came to boys. Domi had always known what to do and say.

“That’s wonderful news, isn’t it?” Aster leaned back slightly in her chair. “It’s obvious he has feelings for you. He looked so… _dead_ before you came here.”

“I’m leaving.” Or so she kept saying. Perhaps, she would start believing it if she said it often enough. “I can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.”

The thing was… She didn’t know why it was dangerous anymore. Because she could get caught? Because _Haymitch_ could be caught hiding an enemy of the Capitol? Or because she was afraid of the depth and strength of what she was feeling for him? She wasn’t ready for that, she didn’t even want that, she didn’t need that kind of complication at that point, she had enough on her plate as it was. Love had crept on her when she wasn’t looking and it was all Haymitch’s fault, _damn_ _him_ and his inability to leave her in the snowstorm. If he hadn’t taken care of her… If…

“Effie…” Aster sounded so sorry for her, she turned her head away. She didn’t want to see the pity on her face. “Do you really have to? Nobody ever comes to Victors’ Village… I think we could hide you.”

It brought tears to her eyes how easily that ‘we’ had passed Aster’s lips. “I don’t want to go but…”

The back door opened on Everdeen and Haymitch, their arms were full of logs, so she fell silent. They dispatched the wood in a corner of the kitchen but when Haymitch straightened and glanced at her with the baby in her arms, something like yearning flashed in his eyes.

“So?” Haymitch asked Aster, after banging his feet against the wall to make the snow fall off his boots. “How is she?”

“Totally recovered.” the healer smiled.

Neither Effie nor Haymitch looked particularly happy at that prospect. Her injuries were his main argument for her to stay in Twelve a while longer.

“Good.” he said, but she knew he didn’t mean it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter drove me crazy because the Everdeens don't have canonical first names. That's very complicated ^^ I named her Aster because it's flower that symbolizes love and patience.


	9. Chapter 8

“What do you do when you’re lost?” Haymitch asked, combing his fingers through her hair.

“Look at the sun.” she answered lazily, knowing she was right. He had droned it into her skull enough times those past few days. She was laying on the couch, her head cushioned on his thigh, the warm caress of the fire was warming her cheeks, it was late enough that they should have started thinking about going to bed but she couldn’t be bothered to move. It was too comfortable and not only because she knew only nightmares awaited her in her room.

“Or?” he prompted, coiling one of her strawberry blond strands around his finger.

“Or that Bear constellation you keep going on about.” She captured the hand playing with her hair and retraced his calloused palm with the tip of her fingers. “Not that I know what it looks like.”

“You’re from the Capitol, aren’t you supposed to be well-learned?” he mocked her, not for the first time since he had taken upon himself to teach her as much tips as necessary for her to survive long enough to reach Thirteen.

She rolled on her back to see him and lifted an eyebrow. “I _am_ well-learned, thank you very much. I was a top A student I will have you know.”

“Not in astrology, you’re not.” he scoffed. “The Little Bear, the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor… All the same thing, sweetheart. Brightest star in the sky, how can you not know what it looks like?”

She stayed silent for a few seconds. “I never looked at the stars.” she confessed, at last. “You can’t really see them from the Capitol anyway.”

“I hate the Capitol, loathe it even.” he said slowly, looking at the fire in the chimney.

“Maybe you should pity it.” she replied warily.

“Pity the Capitol?” he scoffed. “Pity those who take children and watch them fight each other to death without batting an eyelash?”

“Yes.” She scrambled in a sitting position to face his disbelieving – and a little betrayed – face. “Because they don’t know how awful it is. I didn’t.”

He searched her eyes and when he understood she was serious, he scooped up a bottle from beside the couch. She frowned at him with disapprobation but he didn’t glance at her before taking two long swallows. “How can you watch the Games and think it’s right? What kind of monster does that?”

He didn’t want to look at her, she knew. “The kind who doesn’t know any better.” He took another swing at that bottle and she figured he was trying to stay calm. She didn’t want him to get drunk, he was mean when he was drunk. “I’m not saying it’s right, I’m saying…”

“Do you even know what you’re saying?” he barked. “Because you should stop making excuses. Truth is you’re the monsters, sweetheart.”

She got up from the couch and walked to the fireplace, keeping her back to him. She didn’t like that much – turning her back to someone, offering them an opportunity to stab her unaware. She had never thought like that before but she had to now. _Don’t trust anyone_ , her father had said. But she trusted Haymitch, God help her, she trusted Haymitch.

“Pity is less destructive than loathing or hatred.” she said softly. “You will never hurt them by hating them, Haymitch, you will only hurt yourself.”

“Hating them is all I have left.” he snorted.

“Is it?” She absent-mindedly wrote her name on the dust that covered the fireplace mantle. She would have to do the dusting the next day, Haymitch would never be bothered.

“I used to have a family, you know?” he growled. “A mother, a brother… A girl.” There was a challenging note in his voice but she didn’t take the bait. She tried to picture her, that girl. She probably had been her total opposite. “Your people killed them all.”

She let the accusation slide on her but she couldn’t help her wince. “Yes, on that front, I can relate.”

She heard his sharp intake of breath. She heard him put the bottle down and walked to her warily. His hands hovered above her shoulders like he was unsure of how she would react. She leaned back against him, letting his strength bear her whole weight. She trusted him. She trusted him more than she should and, really, her father hadn’t given her the right advice. He shouldn’t have advised her not to trust anyone, he should have advised not to get attached.

Strong arms wrapped around her waist.

“They’re going to take you away from me too, one way or another.” he mumbled against her hair. “How can I not hate them for that?”

She closed her eyes and let her head roll on his shoulder. That was why she should leave as soon as she could. _Now_ even – take off during the night and be nothing more than a parenthesis for him. Some nights, she laid awake and thought she was going to do it, she was going to get up, grab warm clothes and leave. She never did. She never could. Leaving him behind was just too hard.

And yet, the scale was tilting, she could feel it. She had been at a standstill for too long, it was getting dangerous. She knew it and Haymitch probably knew it too but, still, they pretended to be unaware.

She didn’t know what they were waiting for.

Maybe they were waiting for their back to be up against the wall, maybe they were waiting for the moment when it wouldn’t be possible for them to do anything else but going their own separate ways. Maybe she was waiting for this unbearable foreboding in her guts to be proven true.

“I don’t know.” she whispered, eyes closed tight to deny the outside world. “I really don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a bit short but next one will be longer =)
> 
> Also, I know some were concerned because they fell in love pretty fast, that was one of my concerns too when I wrote it but I felt Haymitch was a lot more younger than in the usual time frame for stories and as such he isn't yet as bitter as in canon. He's almost as young as Finnick is in canon, only 24, and maybe life while horrible doesn't seem as desertic and gloomy as it does for him when he's 40.. I don't know, I understand that it can seem very quick, it does to me too, that's why I was unsure about the story in the first place when I re-read it.
> 
> We're halfway through the story by the way! Let me know what you think!


	10. Chapter 9

**_ Chapter 9 :  _ **

“Thief” he accused, a smirk on his lips. “Give it back.”

“I am no thief.” Effie denied for the hundredth time since he had met her, but she couldn’t help her giggles as she sprinted around the kitchen table, the blue shirt she kept sneaking off his closet clutched to her chest. He didn’t care for the shirt, it looked better on her, but that didn’t stop him from diving after her. “Haymitch!” she squeaked, half-laughing, when he grasped her around the waist and nearly lifted her off the ground.

He was laughing too.

That happened a lot. He had forgotten how it felt to be so carefree. It wasn’t every day, it wasn’t every instant, but it happened. And it hadn’t happened once since his Reaping before she got there.

“Are you crying Uncle, sweetheart?” he teased, keeping his hold on her loose enough that she could escape if she really wanted to.

“The eleventh thing you should know about me, Haymitch -” she said, very seriously, while turning around in his arms so they were face to face. “ - is that I _never_ yield.”

“Funny, me neither.” He shrugged. “That’s eleven for you too, by the way.”

She shook her head in amusement, her blond curls flying around her head in a glorious halo. “You are impossible.”

“Is that your number twelve?” They were so close… He wanted to kiss her. The impulse was harder and harder to suppress with each new passing day.

“My number twelve is…”

The sharp banging on the back door interrupted her and it was flung opened before either of them could do anything. Haymitch had barely enough time to push her behind him, a hand already on the hint of the knife he always kept close, when Everdeen entered the kitchen, a little breathless.

“There are Peacekeepers everywhere in the Seam.” the hunter panted. “Cray said they’re from the Capitol. They’re looking for Effie. We have to get her out of here and _fast_.”

Time seemed to freeze.

For a terrible endless second, Haymitch actually thought time _had_ frozen and they were stuck in the worst moment imaginable. And then Effie started moving, slipping the blue shirt over the yellow one she was wearing and rushing to the door. Haymitch caught her arm, their eyes met and he wondered if he looked as panicked as she did, as desperate…

“Come back.” he heard himself beg. “Go hide in the woods but come back to me.” Her face contorted in pain or misery, he wasn’t sure, but he knew, _he_ _knew_ without having to ask again, that she was lost to him now. She was going to leave forever and that was it. He was about to lose her. And it wasn’t fair to ask her to stay if she didn’t want to. It wasn’t fair because his house would soon turn into a prison she wouldn’t be able to leave as often as she wanted to whereas, by taking off, she had at least a small chance to find the freedom she was craving. He could respect that. He didn’t let go of her arm, though, not yet, he couldn’t, but he directed his next question to Everdeen. “How long before they’re here?”

The man shrugged. “They’re busy in the Hob. Half an hour, maybe more, maybe less.”

“Haymitch…” His name was a whisper but he didn’t let himself get emotional. Not yet. It was neither the time nor the place.

“Go upstairs.” he told her. “Put on the warmest clothes you can find.” He released her but she stayed there, staring at him with so much anguish… “ _Go_.”

She did as he bade and he rushed to the small cupboard under the stairs, rummaging through the clutter he had accumulated through the years. He found a backpack and threw it at Everdeen who had followed him into the house. “Stock it.” he commanded. “There’s food in the kitchen, you know what to look for.”

It took him a few minutes to find what he was searching for. A huge box full of clothes from his Victory Tour he had never bothered to throw away or wear again. He found a heavy black jacket and boots that were made for winter. He pushed them towards her when she hurtled down the stairs. She put them on without a word and accepted the jacket and the hunting knife he took off his belt, equally silent.

“I can take you to the woods through the meadow.” Everdeen said, handing her the backpack. “There’s a cabin not far away, you could hide there until they’re gone.”

She was careful not to look at Haymitch when she put the backpack on. “I’m leaving.” Her voice was faint, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying.

Everdeen stared at him pointedly for a few seconds. What was the man waiting for? Haymitch didn’t know. Perhaps he was expecting him to go back on his word and declare he was going with her after all.

“This is suicide, Effie.” he said instead. He had told her that before but he had to warn her again. He simply had to.

“Eleven, remember?” She forced a strained smile on her lips. “I am not yielding without a fight.” She turned to Everdeen. “There is a hole in the fence behind the village, you don’t need to put yourself at risk for me. Thank you for everything you did, thank Aster too, will you?” She hugged him on a whim.

Everdeen looked upset and worried. “Listen to me. Night will be there soon, find the cabin and stay there tonight. There’s a crossbow there, I made it for Katniss, for when she’s older… Take it with you when you leave. The cold is your first concern, you hear me? Don’t forget you’re running from Peacekeepers but you’re also running from snow. If it starts snowing again… Keep warm at any cost. Find shelter as often as you can, don’t hesitate to make a fire if you’re getting too cold and drink often. I’ve put a bottle in your backpack, fill it every time you have a chance. Good luck.” He hugged her again and then clasped Haymitch’s shoulder before heading back outside. “I’m going to… watch for them.”

He was giving them time to say goodbye.

Problem was, Haymitch wasn’t sure how to do that and she didn’t seem to know either. She was looking at her feet, her blond curls shielding her face from his eyes and Haymitch was left contemplating how people could go from moments of happiness to such moments of anguish in a matter of minutes.

“There’s no point in asking you to come with me, is it?” She attempted to give a playful tone to her voice but he could hear the tears she was trying to keep at bay. “It would be very selfish and probably childish too, yet I’m kind of tempted to do it anyway.”

“Thirteen is suicide.” he replied, sadly. He was too much a survivor to go and get himself killed in the wild. He was too much of a coward too.

She nodded like she knew that would be his answer all along and lifted her chin. “Well… Thank you for… _everything,_ really.” There were tears rolling down her cheeks. “I won’t forget you but you should probably forget me as fast as you can.”

“Yeah, sure, princess.” he snorted with bitterness. “How do I do that precisely?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked and she threw herself at him, hugging the life out of him. He hugged back as tight as he could, wondering how on earth he could ever find the strength to let go. “Don’t drink too much, Haymitch.” she mumbled against his neck. “Don’t let them destroy you. Don’t let them win. Start running again, even if it’s harder than standing still.” He thought back to that conversation in the kitchen a few weeks ago, their first _real_ conversation if he was honest. He had told her he was waiting for death to reap him and he had meant it too but now… Now that he knew how good it felt to smile, to laugh, to _feel_ again… “If things had been different…”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes. She could have been Twelve’s next escort. He doubted he would have managed to hate her forever no matter how much he’d have tried. Or they could have met by chance in the Capitol… Either way, they were doomed from the start but it would have been better than this goodbye. This goodbye had a definitive ring to it. “Be careful, out there, sweetheart. Don’t get caught and don’t get killed.”

She tightened her embrace and then she let go. She started to go toward the kitchen and, presumably, the back door but then she stopped on the threshold and looked back over her shoulder. Her backpack slid to the floor and she walked back to him slowly.

He didn’t move.

He didn’t move when she stroke his cheek either but when she raised on tip-toe and kissed his lips softly, he wrapped an arm around her waist and locked a hand behind her neck and then, they were too far gone.

The kiss began slow and unhurried but soon turned hungry and frantic, almost desperate, before becoming languid again. It was forever in a kiss. It was their first and their last, the two brackets framing their non-existent future. It was perfect and terrible in its perfection because it was doomed to stay a one-time occurrence. When he let go of her lips to breathe, Haymitch could have sworn he heard his heart shattering open.

He never should have let himself fall so deep. He never should have sought her that first day. He should have let her freeze in the snow. He should have…

“I…” she whimpered, choking on her tears.

“Don’t.” he begged, pressing his forehead against hers. “Don’t, _please_.”

_Don’t tell me you love me. Don’t go. Don’t break my heart. Don’t leave me alone. Don’t. Just don’t._

“Goodbye, Haymitch.” Her words were slurred and this time when she escaped from his arms, she didn’t look back. She grabbed the backpack and she ran away.

He sat on the stairs and waited for her to come back, knowing she wouldn’t. He let his head drop in his hands and cursed his leaping heart when he heard footsteps coming to stand in front of him because he knew that when he opened his eyes he wouldn’t find her. It was the wrong set of footsteps.

“You should have gone with her.” Everdeen sighed. “When you love someone…”

“Spare me the lecture.” he snapped. “I know everything there is to know about love.” He knew how love killed. It had killed his family, it had killed his girlfriend and, now, it would probably kill him too. “You should go back to your wife. They will think it’s weird if they find you here instead of home.”

Everdeen face was stern and unforgiving but he still sighed and patted his shoulder again. “Call on us if you need anything.”

He needed Effie to stay there with him in open sight, could the Everdeens give him that? He almost asked him but swallowed the words back at the last possible moment. Instead, he stayed where he was while Everdeen left his house and contemplated the deafening sound only silence could produce. He didn’t have to wait long before someone came rapping at his front door, though. He was halfway there when it swung open on a sour looking Peacekeeper.

“Why, come in. Make yourself at home.” he sneered.

“Search the house.” the Peacekeeper said to the small army behind him. There were Peacekeepers everywhere in the village, searching every house. Had Effie been thoughtful enough to erase every trace of her passage ? Had she thought of covering her tracks? No one shouted in victory so she must have. “Abernathy.” the man stared at him with obvious contempt.

“Do we know each other?” It was very possible they did. He had lost count of the number of Peacekeepers he had pissed off in the Capitol throughout the years… Or it was also possible that the man simply wasn’t a fan of his. He had met some haters too, others loathed him because of his drinking habits.

“Head Peacekeeper Hangston is in charge of finding a renegade.” Cray said quickly, squeezing between the stranger and the door. “I told him the whole District would be happy to cooperate.”

“I’m sure.” Haymitch snorted. “Who are you looking for in my house?”

Hangston studied him attentively. “We’re looking for a girl. She’s dangerous, quite mad too. She murdered her family in cold blood before running havoc in the Districts. She killed a Peacekeeper in Four.” Good thing Effie wasn’t there to hear that, it would destroy her. “You wouldn’t happen to have seen a stranger around, would you?”

“No.” he lied bluntly. He kept it at that. The shortest the lie, the likeliest it was to be believed. “But I’m sure you will catch her quickly.”

“Yes, of course they will.” Cray agreed with entirely too much enthusiasm. “Nobody can escape the Capitol.”

Hangston shot him a look of contempt. “The Capitol won’t be mocked by a mere girl. We won’t show any leniency to anyone who has helped her. Even victors.”

Haymitch lifted his eyebrows. “Am I being accused of something?”

“Word on the street is that you’ve been visited quite frequently by the local healer.” Hangston replied. “You don’t seem very ill to me.”

“But he was.” Cray said quickly. “I can vouch for it.”

He was quite moved by that spontaneous show of friendship. Perhaps he had misjudged Cray.

“Yes.” Hangston snorted. “As, I am sure, you can vouch for the black market running right under your nose and the defective electric fence.”

Or maybe Cray was just thinking that if Effie had been hiding in his District all along, it would sign the end of his career.

Cray winced and Haymitch folded his arms. “I had a bad cold and then I befriended the healer and her husband. Is that a crime?”

Hangston probably would have loved it if it were but as a matter of fact, he had no choice but to retreat when one of his men confirmed there was nothing to be found in the house. Haymitch watched them search the rest of the village from his kitchen window. They had ransacked the house, everything was turned upside down but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

When they left, night had fallen and there was nothing else to see outside so he grabbed a bottle from the cupboard, straightened a fallen chair and sat at the kitchen table. He put the bottle on the table but didn’t immediately drink himself into a stupor.

He didn’t want to.

For the first time in too long, he wasn’t longing for alcohol to fill his belly. Alcohol never made the memories go away, it blurred them for a short while. Effie didn’t like it when he drank and, when she had been there to distract him, he hadn’t felt the urge as much. He had cut down on his consumption in the last weeks, the tremors in his hands had even died down.

But Effie wasn’t there anymore and what was there left to fill his days between now and the next Reaping but nightmares? The silence was too loud. It was absolute. It was the silence you heard in your coffin. It was death. It was standing still when you should have been running.

He found himself picking up the phone he had so often contemplated tearing off the wall and scavenged through the pile of papers on the dresser. He found the number after a few minutes and dialed it with a slight apprehension that only deepened when he heard Chaff’s voice in the receiver. They never called each other when the Games weren’t in session, they both belonged to this dreadful period of the year.

“Chaff.” he said, feeling stupid and not exactly knowing why.

_“Haymitch?”_ Chaff sounded more surprised than annoyed by his phone call. _“What’s wrong, buddy?”_

Because for him to call another victor when the next Reaping was still three months away, something must most surely have been wrong…

He wondered what Chaff would say if he told him the whole story, how easily – stupidly – he had fallen in love for a girl he barely knew, how empty he was feeling now that he was alone again. But he couldn’t say any of that. Phones weren’t safe.

“Do you ever feel dead inside?” he asked instead.

There was a short silence at the other end of the line and then a clanging as if Chaff had dragged a chair. _“Okay. Are you drunk?”_

“No.” Haymitch sighed, before closing his eyes and leaning his back against the wall.

_“Then that’s the problem, buddy.”_ Chaff joked. _“Go get yourself a drink.”_

“I don’t drink as much anymore.” He slid to the floor slowly.

_“What can you tell me, Haymitch?”_ Chaff sounded serious, now, worried even. “ _What happened?”_

“Nothing.” he lied, knowing his friend would see right through it. “I’m just tired of all this.”

_“You’re twenty-four. You’re too young to be tired.”_ Chaff pointed out, without thinking any of it. All victors were tired. All victors were wishing for an exit door. And maybe he had found his. Maybe… _“Haymitch, you aren’t thinking about doing something stupid, are you?”_

There was fear in his friend’s voice. Fear and dread and maybe a little envy because… “What if I am?”

_“Don’t take the coward's way out.”_ Chaff warned. _“Don’t you dare make me come all the way to Twelve to kick your butt, man.”_

Haymitch surveyed the kitchen with weariness. It was empty, as was the house and as was his life. “I need to get out of the arena.” he heard himself say, echoing words he had thrown at Maysilee years ago. That was the only way. As long as he was alive, he was still part of the Games. He had to get out. He had to start running again and the only way to do that…

_“Haymitch.”_ Chaff was pained but his friend didn’t dare tell him he was already out. Chaff knew as well as he did how untrue that was. _“Think about this.”_

“There’s freedom in death.” He had told that to Everdeen and he had been right. _That_ was the third option he hadn’t managed to find before Effie left. He had to die.

_“Haymitch.”_ Chaff’s voice was urgent now but Haymitch didn’t let himself be moved.

“Goodbye, Chaff, and good luck.” he said before hanging up.

The phone started ringing soon after but he didn’t pick it up. It was still ringing when he sat at the kitchen table, a stack of paper in front of him and started writing his last note.

If he took off through the woods, they would come after him, there was no winning against that. Now, if he was dead…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm publishing early because I have to leave for a dance competition. Lot of things happen in this chapter and there is a mean cliffy so I would love a feedback =) Go crazy with the theories! Lots of love from me and thank you for reviewing!


	11. Chapter 10

**_ Chapter 10 :  _ **

The tears were freezing on her cheeks but it didn’t stop her sobbing as Effie crawled under the hole in the fence. She had made sure to wipe off the snow with her jacket to cover her trail, she had made sure she had left nothing in the first house she had crashed in before staying with Haymitch, she had made sure…

The tears were freezing on her cheeks and she was helpless to stop them. It was as bad as the day she had to leave everything behind, as bad as escaping her parents’ estate, as bad as throwing her wig in the trash and climbing on a train to hell, as bad as stealing for the first time…

She was relieved to reach the woods because she wouldn’t need to wipe off her footsteps anymore. She slipped the heavy black jacket on and breathed the fabric in but it didn’t smell like Haymitch. It smelt like dust. She retrieved the fisherman coat from where she had hid it, in fear it would be found, and put it in her backpack before heading north. Moving was good. Moving would help her stop thinking. She had to find the cabin Everdeen had mentioned, she would take the crossbow he had so kindly offered, it would be a better weapon than the knife. She didn’t think she could stab anyone again.

Except moving didn’t help her at all. She couldn’t stop thinking. She just… _couldn’t_. She thought about her parents and Domi… She thought about letting her guard down so stupidly… She thought about how she and Haymitch used to sit in front of the fire most nights and just… _talk_. She thought about the way he would freeze sometimes, in mid-laugh, as if he wasn’t accustomed to joy anymore. She thought about how it was so _unfair_ that they didn’t get more time… She thought about the Peacekeepers tearing the District apart to find her. She thought about what they would do if they did. She thought about missing her mother’s stern but caring looks and her father’s hugs. She thought about gossiping with Domi until the early hours of the morning. She thought about sleeping snuggled against Haymitch and feeling safe. She thought about missing them all so dearly.

By the time she reached the meadow, night had fallen. However, from there, it wasn’t difficult to find the lake and the little cabin. She stumbled upon it by chance more than any talent at tracking but she figured she was due for a little help from fate. Fate had been a fickle bitch recently.

It wasn’t much warmer inside the cabin than outside. It was small, a coat on the ground, a table, two chairs, a bow propped up against a wall. She found candles but she didn’t dare light them with the Peacekeepers so close. What if they decided to look for her in the woods? Wouldn’t it be safer for her to leave now? To put as much distance as she could between her and Twelve regardless of how cold it was at night?

She found the crossbow hanging from a nail on the wall. It was heavier than she thought and she wasn’t actually sure of how it worked. She struggled with it for some time, trying to load it, the moonlight made for poor lighting and didn’t help her much. Once the bolt was in place, it didn’t look as hard to use. All you had to do was aim and press the trigger.

She sat on the coat and rubbed her face. She was tired. So, _so_ very tired. The idea of starting to run again, of fearing for her life at every turn…

The prospect of waiting there for the storm to clear before heading back to Haymitch’s was more tempting than trekking through the woods in hope of reaching a District that might or might not still stand.

 _Go to Thirteen_ , her father voice reminded her in her head, _You will be safe there. You’re a clever, girl, Effie, you can do it_. Could she? Could she really? Haymitch didn’t think so. He thought it would be suicide. And, to be very honest, she kind of thought the same thing. Hiding in a District and sneaking on and off trains was one thing, but surviving in the wild was another entirely. It would be like being thrust in an arena of her own making.

_Don’t trust anyone. Run and never look back._

She laughed out loud when she recalled her father’s last advice but it soon turned to sobs. _Run and never look back._ How did you stop yourself from looking back ? Was there a trick? A secret? Because she sure as hell couldn’t stop looking back to her family and the Capitol and she was certain she would look back to Twelve and Haymitch for a long time to come.

How long did she sit there, crying her eyes out? She didn’t know. She felt so utterly _alone_ , it was killing her. What was the point of running if you left everyone behind? What was the point of even being alive if you were doomed to remain alone? The silence, in the cabin, was deafening. She drifted off a little at some point, exhausted by all her weeping, but she didn’t actually fall asleep. She could never sleep knowing people were out there thirsty for her blood.

She felt the change more than she heard it. She couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong exactly but one second she was nodding off, the next, she was on her feet, crossbow aimed at the closed door. Her heart was racing, she could feel adrenaline pumping through her veins. What had alerted her? The crunching of boots on snow? Eyes wide, she watched as the door handle turned slowly. Her hands were shaking, her breathing sounded loud in the small cabin… When the door swung open, she closed her eyes and pressed the trigger. How many were they? How long had she left to live?

“You know, sweetheart, I lost count of the number of times you tried to kill me.”

Her eyes opened wide and she stared at the figure standing on the doorstep, utterly confused. Haymitch, wrapped in a leather jacket and another bag on his back, was staring at the bolt that was sticking out of the wall a good ten inches away from the door she was initially aiming at.

“I think it’s best if you leave the crossbow to me.” he winced. “Somehow, I feel like you will end up shooting me in the ass.”

“Haymitch.” she breathed out at last.

“Hello, princess.” he smirked. “Missed me?”

She tossed the crossbow on the table before throwing herself at him. He stumbled back and they ended up falling in the snow outside but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind one bit. And he didn’t mind either because he was laughing and, then, his hands framed her face and he was kissing her and it was nothing like their last kiss. It was short but slow. It was a kiss that promised many more and her heart was hammering so hard she could have sworn it would beat right out of her chest.

“You said it was suicide.” she reminded him, against his lips. “You said…”

“Yeah, I know.” He kissed her again, just a peck really but it still made her toes curl. “And then I figured suicide was the theme of the day.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

He sighed and got to his feet before helping her to do the same. “I can explain everything but we need to move _now,_ we can’t wait until morning. The furthest we are when they realize I’m gone, the better.”

She gripped his forearms. “Are you really coming with me?” He was. He obviously was. He had a bag, he was dressed for snowy weather and he had come for her, hadn’t he? But she couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t…

“Well, I went to all the trouble to pack, didn’t I?” he shrugged. “Would be a shame to turn back now.”

She felt tears burning her eyes for entirely different reasons. She locked a hand behind his neck and pulled until their faces were on the same level and she could kiss him more easily. With her usual heels they would be roughly the same height but without them he was taller. That kiss was neither sweet nor chaste. It was hot and almost violent. When he pushed her against the cabin outer wall and pressed against her, she couldn’t help a moan.

“Ok.” he panted, against her neck. “Ok. We don’t have time for that.” He pressed a kiss against the side of her neck and winced. “See, just when I think I can’t hate them more, I find new reasons…” His joke made her chuckle and he smiled softly at her. She couldn’t see his features well in the semi-darkness but she knew the expression on his face was one of love and she stroke his cheek, feeling so stupidly happy when she had been so desperate a few minutes earlier. “Effie, there’s every chance they will come after me. Me being with you is a bigger risk for you to get caught, are you sure you want me to come?”

He was serious, his face had grown darker and the smile had disappeared from his mouth.

“With all my heart.” she replied.

He snorted. “Using your head would be better in this kind of situation, sweetheart.”

 _Don’t trust anyone. Run and never look back._ Well, she trusted Haymitch, now, there was no coming back from that. As for looking back… If he was with her, there was nothing to look back to. The Capitol was too far away for her to regret it now.

“My head says to listen to my heart.” she retorted.

“Stupid head.” It was affectionate and he didn’t really mean it so she refrained from launching herself in a lecture.

“Point five still remains.” She pushed him back a little, so she could step back into the cabin and get her bag. “You’re rude.” She handed him the crossbow because he was right and he would probably put it to better use than her.

“I like the fourth point better.” he said, effortlessly loading the crossbow and swinging the quiver full of bolts on his shoulder.

“Remind me what the fourth was, again?” She closed the cabin door behind them. It was cold outside but not as much as the day she had arrived in Twelve, and the jacket was thick enough that it wasn’t unbearable.

“Me being so handsome you couldn’t think straight.” He started right off the cabin and she followed, happy to let him lead. She was actually relieved not to have to worry about stars or the position of the sun or more generally getting lost.

“I don’t think I expressed it quite that way.” she smiled.

“That’s because you couldn’t think straight, sweetheart.” he teased her.

Trekking through woods covered with snow at night wasn’t the easiest thing she had ever done. They moved slowly because they had to be careful about not stumbling and breaking something. He finally explained that he had left a fake suicide note behind, saying he was going to off himself in the woods – in hope that Everdeen would be the one to find it and would know to say he actually had been depressed rather than ill. He wasn’t convinced that it would keep Peacekeepers from running after him as soon as his letter would be discovered, all the more so when they’d fail to find a body, but he was hoping they would believe it in the end and get tired of trying to find him.

“But what made you change your mind?” she asked, as he helped her climb a boulder.

He looked at her then and it was really impractical because she wanted to kiss him again but there was no room for that kind of activities when you were afraid of tumbling back down from a stupid rock if you let go of the tree to your left for even a second.

“I found something worth running for, I guess.” he shrugged.

“You really _are_ a soppy man.” she laughed as they carefully climbed down the other side of the boulder.

“Who says I’m talking about you?” he denied, but he didn’t let go of her hand either. “Maybe I just like chasing ghost Districts.”

“Maybe.” She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.

They stayed mostly silent after that. When dawn finally came, they were both exhausted but they kept going north only taking short breaks. They stopped by late afternoon but Effie could see Haymitch wasn’t pleased with the distance they had traveled. It didn’t make any difference, really, she was so tired she didn’t think she could take another step. They had not found any shelter either but the wind had died down and Haymitch had said they would probably be fine. She snuggled against him and fell asleep in a matter of seconds. When he woke her up, claiming it was her turn to keep watch, night was clearly halfway through.

It was hard not to fall back asleep, harder still not to let her mind wander to unpleasant memories given that she had nothing else to do but _think_. Haymitch’s soft snores filled the silence. She counted them. It was a way to not let the nightmares creep back on her even if she was awake. She was getting cold and really uncomfortable when a familiar noise growled into the air.

“Haymitch.” She only had to shake him once before he was up on his feet, a knife in his hand, his eyes roaming their surroundings to find enemies. He was still half asleep, she was sure. “Haymitch, it’s…”

“Hovercraft.” he said, looking up at the sky that was beginning to lighten up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know, mean cliffy. ^^ Let me know your thoughts!
> 
> As some of you may know if you follow my other stories, I will be away this week for a competitive exam. I will try to update Running next Sunday as usual but I am not making any promises. It will entirely depend on if we get time to beta-read it or not =)


	12. Chapter 11

**_ Chapter 11 :  _ **

They zigzagged between pine trees running as fast as they could, yet the hovercraft’s engine was still very much audible. Haymitch counted their blessings, he had heard that they were developing silent vehicles, this one, at least, let them know they were being chased.

Effie’s hand was clasped tight in his but she was slower than he was, unfamiliar with the woods and their treacherous snowy ground. She kept stumbling on hidden roots or rocks and he was quickly losing his patience. Not for the first time since dawn, he wondered what he had been thinking. Leaving Twelve? Giving up his liquor to run after a girl who was rushing straight to her death? He must have gone crazy… He used to be cleverer than that. They were going to get caught, she was going to get killed and _he_ would be sentenced to a life in a hell of Snow’s own choosing.

“Haymitch.” Effie froze and pulled on his arm to stop him. He turned to her, intending to tell her exactly what had been on his mind, but the words and the anger died on his lips. She was tilting her head and staring at the part of the woods they had just left behind. She looked scared and lost and none of this was her fault. It had been _his_ choice to go after her, his choice to start doing something else with his life than waste it away in a bottle of alcohol. It was unfair to resent her for that now. She had awoken him, she had given him hope of a life that didn’t revolve around an arena and kids he couldn’t save… A few more years living like that and he would have been beyond saving. “Do you hear that?”

He scanned the trees behind them but couldn’t see anything, the woods were dark and the pale winter sun didn’t do much to light the way. “What?”

He could hear the hovercraft circling above them but he didn’t think it necessarily meant they had seen them. They were definitely _looking_ for them though and staying put was against his every instinct. No prey ever stayed still when facing a much stronger predator.

“Dogs.” Her breath formed a white cloud in front of her mouth.

He slung the crossbow off his shoulder, just in case, and listened carefully. Far away, barely perceptible under the noise of the hovercraft’s engine, he could hear faint barking that was becoming louder and louder by the second.

Time to think fast.

“This way.” he urged her, completely going off their initial direction. They started running again, he was dragging her mercilessly behind him, pulling on her hand when she was going too slow for his taste.

“But it’s not north, is it?” she panted, after a few minutes.

No, it wasn’t and they would lose days if they had to go on in that direction but it was their best bet. “The wind.” he explained, short of breath himself. “It will throw them off our tail.” Or at least, he hoped it would. As for their footprints… They just had to trust the wind to cover them. It was strong enough that snow was lifted from the ground and thrust into their eyes with each big gust.

“I can’t go on.” she protested after a while. She tore her hand from his grip and leaned against a trunk, trying to catch her breath.

Haymitch was tired too, he could have sworn his feet were covered with blisters. He couldn’t hear the dogs anymore even the hovercraft had wandered away from them which was either very good or meant their pursuers were so close they didn’t need the hovercraft anymore and were trying to lull them into a false sense of safety. He looked up, trying to gauge the position of the sun beyond the top of the trees. How long had they been running? Long and hard enough for them not to feel the bite of the cold in any case.

“Drink. You need to stay hydrated.” he instructed her absent-mindedly, walking back a few steps down the slight slope they had just taken. He took out his own bottle of water and drank half of it in long swallows.

Water wasn’t a problem as long as they were surrounded by snow. All they needed to do was fill the bottle up with it and wait for it to melt. Food, on the other hand, would quickly become an issue. He would need to hunt and that had never been his forte.

“Haymitch, talk to me.” He hadn’t heard her coming closer – which was disturbing in its own right because if _a Capitol girl_ could creep up on him, then so could anybody else. She placed a hand on his arm, uncertainty written all over her face. “What’s the matter?”

“We’re getting chased by Peacekeepers, sweetheart.” he snorted. “Isn’t that enough for you?”

Her eyes darted around them quickly, as if calling the men hunting them by their names would make them appear right there right then, but wandered back to his face. She licked her chapped lips nervously. “You regret coming with me.” she deduced. “You changed your mind.”

Had he? They stared into each other’s eyes for the longest time and, as he got lost into the blue of her iris, he gradually felt more grounded. His heart stopped racing, his skin stopped prickling in fear, the restlessness and apprehension he had woken up with slowly sunk back down to that part of his mind that belonged to bad memories and nightmares.

He had dreamt of the arena the night before. Worse, he had dreamt he was _trapped_ back in the arena with his family and girlfriend and he lost them one after the other. He didn’t need to be a genius to understand what that was all about. The nightmare hadn’t relinquished his hold on him even after Effie had shaken him awake. When they had started to run, he had still been half convinced he was dreaming. It had taken almost an hour before he realized it was real. The lack of alcohol wasn’t helping.

“No.” he said, at last, when she averted her eyes. He put his cold hand on her cheek, brushing away the reddish curls falling on her face. She didn’t resist when he pulled her in a kiss that left them breathless for more enjoyable reasons than their mad dash through the woods. “Never.”

“Are you sure?” she asked with obvious concern. “Because if you want to go back… You should. I can manage.”

She really couldn’t but that wasn’t why he wanted to stay.

“The whole thing brings back a few memories.” he mumbled, a little ashamed of his weakness. It had been years since his Games and yet the nightmares never went away, the flashbacks never ceased, the ghosts were still haunting him and, according to Chaff, Mags and other older victors, it would always be like that. He had given up because it had seemed like the smartest thing to do, no sense in fighting a lost fight, but… Effie had prompted him to start running again and now he wasn’t sure he could. He wasn’t sixteen anymore, he was twenty-four and he felt like an old man : his body was strained, his muscles were practically non-existent and, somewhere, somehow, he had become rusty.

“Oh.” She frowned. “When the memories of… When I think back to…” She fell silent and breathed out slowly. She was thinking about her family, he guessed. “I count.” she said at last. “Anything and everything. I count until there is no space in my head for the memories. Would it help you?”

“Count?” he repeated with disbelief. He considered it for a second and then shrugged. “Can’t hurt to try. I will keep it in mind.”

“Good.” she nodded, before a relieved smile graced her lips. “I was afraid you were going to run away from me.”

“You should be afraid I _never_ run away from you, sweetheart.” he snorted. “You’re going to get sick of me before you know it.”

She kissed him. He could count the number of times they had kissed on one hand but he thought his favorites were the ones she had initiated. She kissed like she did everything else, with so much energy and passion it left him dizzy.

“ _Never_.” she mumbled against his lips. She pecked his mouth and stepped back. “We should…”

“Yeah.” he agreed, adjusting his backpack. “We will go that way and loop back once we’re sure they’re not following us.” He pointed west, or rather, since he couldn’t get a good hold of the position of the sun, what he thought was west.

“Do you think they know where we’re going?” Effie asked, after they had started walking again. “Do you think they know about Thirteen?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He could still hear the hovercraft in the distance. Who were they looking for? Haymitch or Effie or both of them? Had they already discovered his supposed suicide note? Had they bought it or had they seen through his lies? Did they know Effie was with him? “If they know about Thirteen, it’s going to be impossible to reach it.”

They would cut out their path.

Her hand slipped into his and, for a second, he gave in to the fantasy that they were just two lovers out for a walk.

“Do you think we can survive this?” She didn’t sound certain she wanted an answer to her question and he wasn’t certain she would like what he had to say on the matter. He stood by what he had said since she had told him about her plans to go to Thirteen: it was suicide. Perhaps, slightly less with him by her side, but… still.

“If we’re smart about it, maybe.” he sighed. He had survived an arena and forty-seven people out for his blood, after all. He could deal with impossible odds.

They walked mostly in silence after that, listening carefully for a hovercraft, men or the barking of dogs. The woods around them remained peaceful though, so when night started to fall, Haymitch deemed it safe to call it a day. They found shelter against a small ditch that protected them from the strong cold wind. He didn’t like that wind and he didn’t like what he could glimpse of the sky between the top of the pine trees either. It smelt like snow and another snowstorm was the _last_ thing they needed right then.

They huddled together to keep warm as the temperature dropped lower and lower. He toyed with the idea of starting a fire and then rejected it, unwilling to take the chance of anyone seeing smoke.

“Is that your northern star?” Effie asked, through chattering teeth, pointing out to the sky. It was barely visible but it was there. He still found it flabbergasting that she didn’t know what Ursa Minor was.

“You’re my northern star.” he retorted. _Flirting_ had always been easy for him, it was actually _talking_ about his _feelings_ that was difficult. Although, things between them were pretty clear, he thought. Ridiculous, perhaps, but pretty clear. He had never thought he could feel that way for anyone again.

“Ten.” she reminded him. Her head was tucked under his chin but he could hear the smile in her voice. Ten was him being soppy if he recalled correctly. That game was beginning to get hard to follow.

“You never did say what my twelfth point was.” he mused. Everdeen had barged in before she could spill it and he had been wondering…

Silence stretched for a few seconds which piqued his curiosity. What had she been about to say that she couldn’t say now?

“Maybe I will tell you one day.” she whispered at last. “I’m not sure you are ready to hear it now.”

He couldn’t help his low laughter. “What? You already think you know better than me?” He tightened his hold on her. “We will be an old couple before we reach Thirteen.”

“Is that a bad thing?” she asked, fiddling with the zipper of his jacket.

He covered her hand with his and forced his body to relax, trying to get comfortable against the damp earth at his back and the wet snow under his legs. “Don’t know.” he shrugged. “Don’t think so.”

“I love you.” she said, completely out of the blue. “At your house, you didn’t let me tell you before I left, but… I love you.” She let out a round of chuckles. “How is that for being an old couple?”

He couldn’t answer right away, his heart was racing and he could feel the familiar tremor kicking in his hand, his mouth watered and he was longing for alcohol. As easy as that, the panic was back.

“Effie…” His voice sounded strangely strained. She must have noticed the sudden tension of his body because she relaxed more into him, as if she wanted to compensate for it. It was stupid to react that way, of course, he knew. He had known just as he knew he was feeling the same way.

“It’s alright.” she vowed calmly. “I understand, you don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”

He let her fall asleep after that because he truly didn’t know how to express his feelings out loud. The last time he had uttered those words, the last time he had actually _said_ them… It had been in the Justice Building, right before Peacekeepers ushered him to the train waiting to take him to the Capitol. He had told his mother and his brother he loved them and he had told his girl too and they were all dead when he had come back. Those words felt like a curse now.

He had the nagging feeling that if he told anyone he loved them, they would be dead quicker than he could blink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I've miiiiissed you all all week! I hope you had a great week! Let me know what you think of this chapter =)


	13. Chapter 12

**_ Chapter 12 :  _ **

On the sixth day, they reached the end of the world.

Or at least, Haymitch thought that was what the end of the world should have looked like : water as far as the eye could see.

“Oh my!” Effie breathed in, next to him.

They were standing on a cliff. Trees had begun to clear and space out the day before and Haymitch had guessed they were about to exit the woods and that it was time to turn north again but… He hadn’t been quite expecting _that_. They had left the dogs and the hovercraft behind two days ago, whoever was after them _did_ think they were heading towards Thirteen apparently. Haymitch and Effie had glimpsed the hovercraft in the sky from time to time but it was far enough that they didn’t worry about it.

“Want to bet it’s salty water?” he joked bitterly.

The further they went east, the less snow they found. They had been rationing themselves for days but they were almost out of water and they were definitely out of food. He had placed some snares and had tried to put the crossbow to good use but Haymitch wasn’t a hunter and all he had to show for his efforts were some plants he thought were edible.

“Of course it’s salty water.” Effie said “Don’t you realize where we are?”

He realized they’d have barely survived cold and Peacekeepers to die of exhaustion and hunger if they didn’t find food and water soon. The view _was_ beautiful though, breathtaking even. It looked like Panem was throwing itself into the ocean or, rather, as if the ocean was desperately trying to devour Panem. Waves crashed at the foot of their cliff with so much strength it was a miracle the stone resisted.

“Let’s go.” he told her. The stone could resist all it wanted, in the end time and erosion would get to it. “We should follow the coastline northward. We could try fishing.”

He had never done it but he knew the theory. It couldn’t be that hard.

“Alright.” she agreed quietly, tearing her eyes away from the endless shimmering blue horizon with some difficulties.

Haymitch led the way and pretended really hard he didn’t see how sluggish her movements had become or how pale and exhausted she looked. It wasn’t just that she was tired – he was tired too – she was beginning to lose hope they would ever get to Thirteen. She had stopped asking him if he thought they would make it, she had stopped lecturing him about how being in the woods and cold to death wasn’t an excuse to go without manners and proper behavior, she had stopped talking except when it was strictly necessary for her to do so – and he had come to learn that when Effie was concerned, quiet wasn’t good – she was slowly giving up and that worried him. He had watched enough Games, saw enough victors and mentored enough losers to know why her behavior was dangerous. Once you started giving up, you were already dead. He thought it would be better if he could just find food. She wasn’t used to starvation, she wasn’t used to feeling weak and tired… Her weeks fleeing from District to District didn’t count faced with a lifetime of getting refined food with a click of her fingers.

They were slower than he would have liked but he didn’t dare push her harder for fear she would break. She wasn’t a tribute. She had shown extreme resilience but she wasn’t a tribute and she might have been a survivor but even survivors died at some point.

“Haymitch?” Her hand fell on his shoulder, effectively stopping him.

He was so engrossed in his own anxiety he hadn’t realized she had been calling out to him for the past five minutes. “What’s wrong?” His eyes scanned the edge of the woods and the sky, looking for enemies – and maybe they should have stayed under the trees and not walk in the open like they were doing but he had seen enough woods those past few days to get claustrophobic – and finding none.

“Look.” She pointed to a slope going down the cliff and closer to the sea line.

“It’s salty water, it won’t help…” he started but she squeezed his arm, her eyes shining with excitement.

“No, _look_.” she insisted. At first, he didn’t see anything. And then it dawned on him. All the graying or reddish mounts, rocks and cliffs he could see from where they were standing… The water was licking at them with passion but… It wasn’t stone, stone didn’t have that dangerous glint, it was metal. Old, rusty and very, very near collapsing metal. “Ruins.” she said. “These are ruins. We need to get down there.”

“Or not.” he retorted. “It could be dangerous.” He was sure those things would collapse as soon as they would put a foot down there.

She looked at him like he had grown a second head. “Don’t you understand?” she asked. “It might predate the Dark Days! It might even be from before Panem was…”

“Sweetheart, we’re not getting down there.” he cut her off. “I don’t care how old those things are or how curious you are, it’s not worth our lives.”

She started to argue but he refused to relent and in the end she agreed that it would be unsafe to try to reach sea level just to get a closer look. They started walking again and he had to tell her at least four times not to get so close to the edge because she was eager to see everything she could. She started talking about her parents’ house and its particular architecture, he didn’t care that much truth be told but he was so relieved to hear her prattling again he even asked a few questions. Architecture, as a matter of fact, seemed to be a passion of hers.

They headed back to the woods in mid-afternoon because the coastline kept on going east and they needed to go north. She fell silent again once the big tower shaped metal structures were out of sight and he was almost glad when he tripped upon a rock that wasn’t a rock. The next ruins weren’t that hard to spot and they were relatively well preserved. It had probably been a village or a town rather than a city. Wilderness had reasserted itself as the only master of the place. There were skeletons of houses stabbed by trees or branches, relics of shelters covered in moss…

“That’s unbelievable.” Effie sighed, slowly twirling on herself to take everything in. “It’s so beautiful…”

If there was beauty in the landscape, Haymitch wasn’t seeing it. All he saw was death.

“You think that thing would collapse on us if we went in?” he asked her, his eyes on the better preserved house he could find. It was nothing grand; in fact, it had probably been a shed rather than a house. The roof was mostly gone but the walls were still standing and that would mean shelter when the wind started roaring. So close to the shore it would get cold pretty fast.

“We should try.” she suggested before wincing. “I don’t think I can go any further today.”

It was still early, three or four hours of daylight to go before nightfall but Haymitch only nodded his assent. It would give him time to hunt – or _try_ to hunt at the very least. The door of the shed fell down when he pushed it open but the walls stayed up which he counted as a victory. It wasn’t big but it would do for the night.

He left his bag with her and instructed her to look for a stream around their campsite but not to wander too far and then he went hunting for their dinner. Hunting wasn’t fun for him, never had been and never would be, all the more so now that he had been cast in the role of the prey one time too many. He sucked at hunting. He put up snares and he was waiting for a stupid rabbit or whatever to show up when he heard the familiar noise of the engine.

The pine trees weren’t close enough to provide a good cover so he jumped in the bushes instinctively. His heart was racing in his chest and, as always when he reached that level of stress, he felt the deep pulsing longing for the burning taste of alcohol. But there was no liquor to be found in that place. No liquor, food nor water.

The hovercraft passed over his head and continued his way north-east, right where Haymitch had left Effie. He almost started running when he realized it was heading her way but he forced himself to stay put and think. What if they spotted him and he led them to her? Would Effie react quickly enough? What if they spotted her? What if they _caught_ her?

It felt like forever before the hovercraft disappeared from view. He ran back to the campsite, as fast as he could. Wilderness was the only thing to greet him. “Effie!” he shouted, looking around frantically, half-sure they had found her and taken her away. “ _Effie_!” He checked the shed, she had left their bags there but that was the only sign of her presence. _Where was she_? He ran out and called her name some more, his heart was beating so fast he could swear it was going to break right out of his chest. He couldn’t do any of this without her, he didn’t want to. He needed her, his mystery girl seeking shelter from the snow, and if they had taken her… He would go to hell and back to find her again. “Effie!” The fear was making him dizzy.

“Haymitch!” he finally heard back. She emerged from two bushes, looking worse for the wear. She had twigs in her hair and mud on her face. Relief flashed in her eyes when she saw him but he didn’t lose any time in explaining. Relief wasn’t a strong enough word to express what he felt. He rushed to her, grabbed her face and kissed her hard, harder than he had ever kissed her probably. He barely registered the loud thump of whatever she was carrying hitting the ground.

“Where _were_ you?” he asked breathlessly, before kissing her again. He wanted to be angry but he didn’t have the energy for that. Not when he had thought…

“I was hiding.” she explained in a rushed whisper. “I slipped and I fell and… I found water.”

“Water’s good.” he mumbled against her lips, tangling a hand in her knotted hair to tilt her head further. He couldn’t stop kissing her. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t feel anything but relief, and he couldn’t stop kissing her. “Don’t do that again. I thought they got you.”

There was a shift in the power dynamics. He had been kissing her but at that moment she took control of the kiss and there was no coming back from that. Hands were everywhere: tugging at their clothes, roaming on the newly exposed skin… He wasn’t sure how they got back to the shed and their bags, he wasn’t sure of much, to say the truth, except for the fact he was high on desire. They had never gone that far before. Kisses and hasty touches were all they had allowed themselves because it wasn’t clever to lower your guard that much when you were on the run but Haymitch didn’t think he could stop if he’d tried. Being clever or prudent were the last things on their mind.  

He quickly fashioned a makeshift nest with their jackets, unable to keep his lips away from her skin long enough to do a proper job of it. Given a choice, he would rather have offered her a bed of feathers or whatever it was Capitol girls enjoyed but he had nothing else to give. Clothes flew everywhere as they became more desperate to touch, to taste each other. She knew what she was doing but he could tell she was still relatively new to this and it had been a long time for him so he tried to take it slow.

He was very busy kissing every inch of her breasts when she tugged on his hair to make him look at her. “Twelve.” she whispered breathlessly. “You love me.”

He didn’t even hesitate before kissing her, crushing the words he didn’t want to say. Everything he loved was ripped from him and he wasn’t about to let that happen to her. And yet there was so much hope and understanding in her blue eyes he couldn’t help himself. “You need to find a thirteen, now, sweetheart.” he kissed her throat slowly, nibbling on the soft skin of her shoulder.

“You never gave me a twelfth point.” she reminded him, locking her legs around his waist to urge him closer. She was driving him crazy.

“Twelve is you love me.” He propped himself on his forearms to look at her properly. “Twelve is you will never leave me again. Twelve is… you made me start running.”

She wasn’t expecting that much. Her grin was contagious and he smirked back at her. He laughed when she switched them around so she was the one on top, a rain of kisses fell all over his body and he couldn’t stop laughing with genuine happiness and an intoxicating sense of freedom. She was his jail-free card. She was his second chance.

And he loved her so, _so_ much.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! There is only 3 chapters left =)


	14. Chapter 13

“Run. _Run!_ ” Haymitch urged her, pushing her in front of him. It was all a mess… “Effie, come on!”

She stumbled on a root hidden by the thin coat of snow and fell down. They lost precious seconds in getting her upright again. His hands were sweating, his grip on the crossbow was slippery and he couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding away.

They had been walking away from the shore for two days when the snow had started falling again. The more they went north, the colder it got. They had dealt with the cold before however that wasn’t a problem, they had found a new way to keep warm at night. Haymitch had even managed to catch a hare, he had started to feel hopeful about the whole things because despite the wilderness, the hunger and the weather, life was sweet. He was free and he had Effie.

Of course, he had learned long ago that all good things came to an end. According to his estimations, they were about a day away from Thirteen’s borders when it had gone to hell. The hovercraft had come back but they hadn’t managed to hide quickly enough, Peacekeepers were after them again and they had guns. They were so close they could hear the crunching of their boots on the snow in the distance.

They had been _so_ close to making it…

He didn’t know what was waiting for them in Thirteen – Effie’s rebels or merely radioactive ruins – but he would have loved to find out for himself.

“We won’t make it!” Effie panted in despair as he hauled her up and pushed her again in whatever direction he thought north was. He didn’t know for sure. He was more worried about getting away from the Peacekeepers. “Haymitch, I’m so sorry! I should never have asked you to come with me… It’s…”

“Save your breath and run!” he cut her off. She was out of breath, she was exhausted and she would never outrun them. _He_ would never outrun them. They had a five minutes head start on the Peacekeepers. Five minutes wasn’t much. Perhaps he could buy her another two. He stopped running and adjusted his grip on the crossbow.

“What are you _doing_?” Effie asked, turning back to him with a puzzled expression. She was panting hard and clutching her side. “We need to go!”

“You go, sweetheart. I will be right behind you.” he lied, facing the way their pursuers were coming from. They wouldn’t be long. He could hear the orders being shouted back and forth. “Go!”

“You are _not_ serious.” she hissed. In three long strides she was next to him, clutching his jacket and trying to drag him away from there. “Stop that!” she ordered when he dug his heels in the ground. He pushed her away not so gently.

“You’re losing time.” he snapped. “Don’t be stupid. _Go_.”

He hadn’t been expecting the small fist she slammed repeatedly on his arm. “ _You_ are stupid ! I am not leaving you behind to die. Now, quit trying to play the hero and _come on_.”

He grabbed her wrist before she could hit him again and pulled her forward so their faces were close. She was terrified. Odd how her terror made his own panic fade away.

“Run.” he instructed calmly. “Effie, you run and you don’t look back. Whatever you hear, you don’t look back.” It was the arena all over again. Except this time, the only way to win was to die. Because the only way to win was for _Effie_ to live.

She looked stricken for a second and then her face hardened. “Not _ever_ again. Don’t you _dare_ …” She closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them they were unyielding, she thrust her chin in the air stubbornly. “We do this together or we don’t do it at all. I am _done_ with leaving people behind.” She was serious, he realized. She would stay. She would die there with him. “You said I made you start running again.” she said, her eyes shining with tears she was fighting hard to suppress. “Now would be a good time to literally do that, Haymitch.”

She _really_ wasn’t leaving.

“We’re not going to make it.” He didn’t want to lie to her. “They’re too fast and we’re too slow.” They were well-fed and well-clothed and probably had an entire night of sleep instead of the few hours Haymitch and Effie had grabbed here and there. “I can hold them back. Give you a chance.”

“Thirteen. You are pessimistic.” She swallowed hard before slipping her hand in his.

“Thirteen is suicide, sweetheart.” he whispered like he had done at least ten times before. He had never thought it would be that true though.

“It might very well be.” Her laugh was low and broken but she clung to his hand. “One last stand, then.”

“Effie, _go_.” he begged.

She shook her head and let go of his hand to grab his neck and pull him in a kiss. It was short and desperate, so much like their first Haymitch was sure it would be their last.

“Twelve.” she reminded him against his lips. _Twelve is you love me_ , he had told her, _Twelve is you will never leave me again. Twelve is… you made me start running._ But what did you do when running wasn’t an option anymore? Haymitch had been standing still ever since his Games and that had been self-destructive, that had been giving up. How was that different? Perhaps, he realized when he met her eyes, because there was a difference between standing still and standing your ground.

“Twelve.” he agreed. Twelve meant he loved her. Twelve meant he was sorry he couldn’t save her. Twelve meant he was sorry he failed her. “You have the knife?”

Not that it would make any difference. They would probably be dead before he could even shoot his crossbow. She nodded and freed the hunting knife from her belt. It looked awkward in her hand, her grip on the handle was wrong but there was no time to correct that now. She could wield it well enough anyway.

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to run?” she asked in a shaky voice, eyes riveted on the trees. The shout were getting closer, Peacekeepers would be there any second now. “Or hide, maybe? _Anything_ really?” There was a touch of hysteria to her voice, yet she stood still next to him.

It would have been the perfect time to get over his insecurities and mental block and say the words he wanted to say instead of a mere ‘Twelve’ that held no real value, but he couldn’t. And there was no time left anyway. Peacekeepers stormed around them, coming to a hasty halt, obviously surprised to find them waiting. They didn’t shoot immediately which Haymitch took as a good sign but the guns aiming at them didn’t waver either. He didn’t dare step in front of Effie in case they interpreted that as an aggressive gesture and pulled the trigger but the urge was difficult to suppress.

A man came forth from the rear of the Peacekeepers squad. That one didn’t have a helmet but he sure as hell looked smug. He looked just as despicable as Haymitch remembered him.

“Abernathy.” Head Peacekeeper Hangston spat with so much malevolence, Haymitch really wondered what he had done to the guy. Threw up on his boots during one of his and Chaff’s visits to the finest bars the Capitol had to offer? “You are in _so much_ trouble.”

He was about to retort with something that would probably have sounded really clever but would have also had them killed on the spot when Effie took a step forward. All guns changed tracks and aimed at her in a deafening chorus of clicking. He grabbed her arm to drag her back but she didn’t seem to realize it. She did stop though, her eyes wide. She was gripping her knife so tight, her knuckles were white.

“Your voice…” she hissed. “It was _you_.” She tried to take another step but Haymitch held her back firmly. She shrugged his hand away but he managed to grip her jacket.

“Effie, snap out of it.” he ordered, afraid of what was happening. It wasn’t difficult to add two and two : Hangston had been in charge of finding Effie… It wasn’t a stretch to imagine he had been in charge of dealing with her family before that.

“He killed them all!” she roared, trying to get free but he held on and pulled her into his side. He didn’t dare let go of the crossbow but he trapped her against him. “He _killed_ them!” She was enraged and he was sure she would jump on the Peacekeeper and stab him to death if he let her. He was also very sure she would be long dead before she reached him. “Haymitch, let me _go_.” He tightened his hold, cursing that man to hell and back.

Hangston actually seemed amused by the scene she was causing. “We don’t need the girl.” he said. “Kill her.”

“No!” Haymitch shouted, pushing her behind him. She tried to flung herself past him but he forced her back. “ _No_.”

“Sir?” one of the Peacekeeper asked when Hangston started laughing.

“Why, Abernathy… Did you find yourself a girlfriend?” the man mocked. “After what happened to the last one…”

It was fortunate he was too focused on keeping Effie behind him because he probably would have tried to kill the man for that sole comment.

“My orders are to bring _you_ back.” Hangston explained, with false sympathy. “She, on the other hand, should have been dead for a good month and a half now.” He nodded to one of the Peacekeeper. “Kill her.”

In a perfect world, Haymitch would have reacted sooner. He would have trained the crossbow on the guy, pulled the trigger and pushed Effie out of the line of fire. In a perfect world, he would have had enough time to act before the detonation echoed in his ear.

That world wasn’t perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters left and a mean cliffy! I'm sooooo mean. ;) Let me know what you think!


	15. Chapter 14

For a moment time seemed to freeze.

The gunshot echoed in Haymitch’s ears and he waited for Effie to cry out in pain, to collapse… He waited and waited and it felt like forever.

It merely lasted a second.

Suddenly, there were more gunshots, more barked orders and men in grey emerging from the woods around them. Haymitch and Effie were trapped in the no man’s land between the two groups.

“Down!” someone in grey shouted at them and Haymitch obeyed instantly, grabbing Effie and pulling her to the ground, trying to shield her with his body as much as he could.

It could have worked if she had let him.

He should have remembered she never played fair. He wasn’t expecting the blow and, therefore, he didn’t react quickly enough when her elbow collided with his chest and she escaped from his arms. He barely had time to scramble up before she was already hurtling herself at Hangston with a knife for only weapon.

Haymitch ran but he knew he wouldn’t reach them in time. The Peacekeeper’s gun was already aiming at her, his white gloved finger was on the trigger…

“ _Effie_!” he screamed, out of fear and despair.

There were too many gunshots ringing around for him to know precisely when Hangston pulled the trigger but, suddenly, Effie stilled.

Haymitch’s heart missed a beat but he didn’t stop moving. He finally reached her and wrapped his arms around her just as Hangston collapsed in the snow, on his knees, eyes wide, a dark purple stain quickly growing on his chest.

Effie let out a cry of anguish and started wriggling in Haymitch’s arms, lifting her right arm in stabbing motions as if she yearned to finish him herself.

“Get her out of the crossfire!” one of the men in grey shouted.

Haymitch had troubles doing that but he managed to drag her a few feet away from the fight and then he simply dropped on her with his whole weight to prevent any more escape as much as to shield her from any wayward bullet. She struggled for a few minutes and then she gave up, becoming strangely limp under him.

“I wanted to kill him myself.” she whispered once the gunshots had died. “I wanted to make him pay…”

“Three.” he reminded her. “You’re not a killer.”

“I am not so sure about that.” she replied so low it was almost carried away by the requests for the remaining Peacekeepers to drop their gun.

It wasn’t long before a worn pair of boots appeared in Haymitch’s line of sight. He looked up to see a blond man clad in grey with sparkling blue eyes. Twelve’s victor was quick to get back on his feet, hauling Effie up in the process and stepping in front of her protectively – just in case. The man didn’t seem very interested in him though, he kept looking at her above Haymitch’s shoulder.

“Effie.” the stranger smiled. “Long time no see.”

He felt Effie tense behind him and then he was roughly pushed aside when she threw herself in the man’s open arms with a laugh.

“Hadrian!” she squealed in delight.

If she held him any tighter, Haymitch mused with a pang of jealousy, the man would die of asphyxia.

When she finally released the man, she turned to Haymitch with a bright smile. “He’s my cousin.” she explained with a touch of hysteria. “See? He’s _alive_. My father was right. My father was…” Her voice broke and she shook her head before holding out her hand to Haymitch who clasped it in his own without a second thought. “Hadrian, this is…”

“Haymitch Abernathy.” her cousin finished with an amused smile. “I know the story, Effie. _All Panem_ knows the story by now. We’ve been looking for you two for a while.”

“What?” Haymitch frowned, utterly confused.

Hadrian’s grin was almost mocking. “Welcome to the rebellion, Haymitch.”

~O~

Effie felt as if she had been riding a rollercoaster nonstop for the past few months.

She looked at the grey clothes they had provided her with in distaste.

“Humor them.” Haymitch said from the next bed, slipping the grey undershirt without a second thought. “At least they’re dry.”

Haymitch didn’t look much more convinced by the rebels than Effie was but Thirteen was shelter and that was all they needed. Hadrian’s explanations had been scarce and obviously intended to be fuzzy. All the way to the hospital wing, he had repeated and repeated that they would be told what was going on in Command. Effie didn’t see what they needed to be told but she had let their doctors probe and poke at her all the same. She had gobbled up the food and swallowed the water and she had shed her damp clothes with gratefulness.

Now they were about to be brought to Command – whatever that was – and Effie was nervous. Everyone they had met on their way down had smiled at them, even sometimes waved at them, reached out to touch them… Haymitch had been as puzzled as she was but had guessed it was because of his status as a victor. He had joked about Thirteen probably not getting their share of famous visitors very often. Effie wasn’t convinced. She wasn’t a victor, she certainly wasn’t _that_ famous and people had still been trying to get her attention.

“Ready?” Haymitch asked, outstretching his hand.

She finished lacing her boot, tugged her shirt in place and grabbed his hand. A soldier led them through a maze of corridors that all looked the same to her. She was feeling small and lost, she clung to Haymitch’s hand like a terrified child.

Command was an impressive room full of screens and busy people. Hadrian was there talking to a grey-haired man and, for a second, Effie couldn’t breathe properly. Her heart hammered in her chest and the tears almost choked her as a stupid, improbable hope started to spread… Only to be crushed when the man glanced at her.

Wrong eyes.

But still very kind.

“Effie…” her uncle breathed out, with such contained grief she didn’t hesitate to run into his arms. “My girl…” He petted her hair as she embraced him tight, and she pretended for just a second that he was her father. The height was the same, they looked alike… It wasn’t difficult to lose herself in the fantasy. “I am so very sorry.”

A hand brushed her shoulder and she let go of her uncle to step back against Haymitch’s chest. He was looking at the rest of the people in the room warily and it was clear he would like to keep her close. She trusted him so she did as he wished.

Aside for her uncle and her cousin, there was a woman in her mid-thirties with already graying hair and cold grey eyes. Effie disliked her on sight. She was sitting next to an old man with square shoulders and a straight back who was staring at her and Haymitch with a calculating face. And lastly, there was another young man with a good belly and a hairstyle that screamed Capitol who was smiling at everyone.

“Please, take a seat.” the man suggested, waving at the chairs around the table.

Effie accepted gratefully, relieved to be off her aching feet, and nudged Haymitch to do the same.

“What’s going on?” Haymitch asked at once, not one to beat around the bush. He was staring at the screens and Effie took a proper look for the first time. What she saw made the hair stand at the back on her neck.

“Is that Panem?” she whispered.

_Riots_. Districts in riots that was what was happening.

It was impossible.

“First, a round of introductions are in order.” the younger man cleared his throat. “My name is Plutarch Heavensbee, I’ve been in charge of the Capitol’s broadcasts for about two years now. Of course, you already know Jorna and Hadrian Trinket. This is President Fren and his second in command Alma Coin.” Plutarch’s smile became strained. “As for you, you are now Panem’s star-crossed lovers and the new faces of the rebellion.”

There was a second of silence.

Effie could hear the blood rushing in her ears.

“What?” Haymitch said at last.

It took entirely too long for Plutarch to tell them Thirteen’s complete story. Effie was too tired to focus and she simply tuned him out after a while. Haymitch, on the other hand, seemed enthralled. She watched him as the man talked, studying the way his jaw clenched at some parts of the tale and the way the corner of his mouth would turn up quickly and briefly at some other.

“We have been biding our time for some years now.” President Fren said.

It was the first time he had opened his mouth and it made Effie startle. She blushed when all the eyes turned on her.

The President fortunately didn’t seem to mind or notice. “We were waiting for an excuse. A spark if you will. You, young lady, gave us the perfect opportunity.”

Being addressed as a “young lady” wasn’t something that had happened to Effie is some time.

“I didn’t do anything.” she protested.

“On the contrary.” Plutarch countered. “We have been monitoring you ever since we learned what happened to your father. He was one of ours as you must have guessed by now. Your uncle was adamant we needed to smuggle you out of the Capitol…”

“I never thought you would manage to leave by your own means.” Jorna interjected. “That was reckless, Effie.”

“And brilliant.” Haymitch spat defensively. “She made it, didn’t she?”

“That she did…” Plutarch laughed. “You have no idea how many times we tried to contact you, Miss Trinket, but then… You seemed to be doing alright on your own and you had _no idea_ what you were leaving in your wake.”

Plutarch looked delighted. His eyes were sparkling with obvious amusement. Effie was simply lost.

“I don’t understand.” she confessed readily enough.

“Rumors.” Plutarch explained. “Rumors in every Districts of a Capitol girl fleeing the city and when we were sure you finally reached Twelve and you stumbled on Mr Abernathy’s path… Well…”

“All this time you knew where she was, what she was going through… And you didn’t help?” Haymitch’s tone was soft but dangerous and Effie reached for his hand instinctively, silently begging him not to start a fight. She was too tired to fight, she just wanted to sleep, preferably curled up against him. Yet, Haymitch wasn’t done. His fingers laced with hers but his eyes were glaring daggers. “You let her _jump off a train_?”

“That was unfortunate.” the woman shrugged. “Although it made for a wonderful story. People all around Panem bought it hook, line and sinker.”

“A story?” Haymitch growled. “What story?”

“Why, a love story, of course.” Plutarch grinned. “What else would people want? It was quite an easy tale to spin. A rumor here, tampered footage there… You met Miss Trinket during your time in the Capitol, you both fell madly in love with each other, President Snow learned about it, killed her family as a warning – it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time – she fled across the country to join you in Twelve so you could both escape and be free to love each other. Panem’s star-crossed lovers. It’s perfect because even Capitol’s people can relate.”

“The Quell wasn’t that long ago. You are still quite popular, Abernathy.” Hadrian joked. “And Effie is easy on the eye, that doesn’t hurt. You’ve been in those woods for about a week and a half, a lot of things happened during that time. We made it known that the Capitol was after you two to kill you. People rioted over that, all they needed was an excuse really. Of course, Snow wants you to deny it on national TV, Abernathy, that’s why we were trying to find you first. You’re very good at hiding.”

“I don’t understand.” Effie repeated for the second time, rubbing her eyes. They were burning. She was _so_ exhausted.

“You are the faces of the rebellion.” the woman snapped. “You will stand in front of a camera, proclaim your undying love for each other and tell people to keep fighting for as long as necessary.”

“That’s a bit harsh, Alma.” Plutarch cleared his throat. “Ask them if they agree, at least.” His eyes fell on their still clasped hands. “Although, I see no acting will be necessary.”

Haymitch remained silent for a very long time then he relaxed in the chair, glancing at one of the screens. Effie was trying really hard not to. She could glimpse flames and Peacekeepers shooting at unarmed people.

“Can we win this?” he asked. “Realistically?”

“We have resistance networks in every Districts. People are ready.” President Fren said. “All they needed was a reason to fight. You gave them the spark. You need to tend to the fire now.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Haymitch argued. “Can we win this?”

“We believe so.” Coin finally answered.

When Haymitch turned to Effie, she already knew what he wanted to ask. His eyes were alight with excitement, full of life…

She had asked him to start running again.

She couldn’t refuse him now.

“Twelve.” she whispered tiredly, carefully forgetting about the thirteenth point. _Thirteen_ _was_ _suicide_ , he had said again and again. She figured he had no idea how right that was.

“Twelve.” he agreed to everyone’s puzzlement. “We will do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the one before last chapter, next one will be an epilogue. I’m publishing early because I won’t be here all afternoon. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and please do let me know, feedback is important! <3


	16. Epilogue

**_ Epilogue:  _ **

_A year later…_

“Have you seen my blue earrings?” she asked from the small en-suited bathroom.

Haymitch glanced lazily at the dresser but couldn’t be bothered to really look, too busy staring at the ceiling and worrying over the train’s next stop. The post-war victory tour had been Plutarch’s idea – like most of the rebels’ plans – and as far as Haymitch was concerned it was a bad one.

The war had been long and taxing for everyone involved, Haymitch and Effie most of all. They had been paraded around like puppets, made to act for cameras that couldn’t leave them alone for five minutes… The wedding had been the worst, he mused, absent-mindedly brushing the golden band on his finger – not because he hadn’t _wanted_ to marry her but because he hadn’t meant to do it in front of fifty cameras and the entire population of Thirteen. Acting happy and in love all the time had taken their toll on them. They had gone through months of arguing and ugly fights that often left them hating the others for a few hours – rarely longer, they loved each other too much for fights to last much longer than a day or two.

And when they had finally _won_ , when Snow finally surrendered… He had thought they would be free only to realize it had been a pipe dream from the start. Once a victor, always a victor. They wanted them on camera, offering unlimited support to the rebel government, distracting people from their worries with their _so_ wonderful love story…

When Plutarch had suggested a pregnancy would do wonders to lift the spirits of Panem’s citizens, Haymitch had thought Effie was going to chop his head off.

Truth be told, Haymitch had been relieved by her reaction.

He had been less relieved when President Fren had stepped down due to his age and elections had been organized only to have Alma Coin presented as the rebels favorite. Effie had launched herself whole heartedly in a campaign against her, offering her public support to a District rebel leader instead. Haymitch had stuck by her side, of course, amused by the whole thing but attentive that Coin wouldn’t try something stupid like attempting to have Effie killed.

Effie was very skilled at planning, it hadn’t been a surprise when her favorite had won.

Coin had gone back to Thirteen but he was sure they hadn’t heard the last of her. That woman was thirsty for power.

After the elections, Plutarch had suggested the victory tour as a last hurrah and a way to let the Districts know they weren’t forgotten.

“I can’t wait for this to be over.” he mumbled when she finally walked out the bathroom. She didn’t look like his mysterious girl anymore – no more baggy clothes and unruly hair. She was wearing proper dresses nowadays with make-up and fashionable hairstyles. She had never truly gone back to the Capitol fashion and its over-the-top dresses, make-up and wigs. She knew he disliked them and she was more keen on seducing him than pleasing the rest of the world. She made the trends nowadays anyway.

“One more and we will be done.” she reminded him, fishing her earrings from the bedside table. “We can settle down.”

Her smile was bright and contagious. He almost forgot to be nervous about their last stop. Twelve had been almost completely destroyed during the rebellion – because of him and his escape – and he wasn’t in any hurry to face the consequences of his stunt. He had been adamant about not going back there to film propos or the likes. He didn’t want to see it.

“Where?” he asked, rolling on his side to watch her clip her earrings on.

She sat down next to him to brush a hand against his cheek. “Anywhere. I don’t mind as long as I’m with you.”

She was twenty now but he knew she felt like a thousand years old. They had both seen and done things that had aged them before their time. Haymitch aspired to nothing but peace and solitude. He wanted her and that was all.

“Time to stop running.” he said, forcing a smile.

“There is nothing to run from anymore.” she corrected him. “We are free.”

“We will never be free.” he argued, placing his hand on hers. “You know that. Plutarch will invent another public thing in a month or they will want interviews or…” He stopped and sighed. He hated being in the spotlight. He hated when _they_ were in the spotlight, exposed for everyone to pick or marvel at their perfect relationship. Their relationship was far from perfect, it was born from survival and as much as they loved each other they had their bad days just like everybody else. Except bad days weren’t allowed when you were Panem’s sweethearts. “We will never be free.”

She leaned in and pressed a tentative kiss against his mouth.

“Then we need to disappear.” she whispered against his lips. “I’m an expert at hiding, haven’t you heard?” Her grin turned evil and she kissed him more deeply. “I’m an expert at _many_ things. Perhaps I will show you tonight.”

“Promises, promises…” he snorted with a smirk. “Two, sweetheart. You’re a flirt.”

“Twenty-three.” she countered easily. Their game had outgrown them now, they were well past a hundred things they knew about each other. Sometimes the numbers switched because they couldn’t remember which was which, sometimes they forgot and simply gave the other a new point. The only constant was _Twelve_. _Twelve_ meant _I love you_ and would always mean it. “You secretly love it when I make you beg.”

“True.” he admitted easily, pulling her closer. She complained about creasing her dress but in the end, she curled up next to him and waited until the train slowed down to a complete stop.

“Time to go.” she murmured softly. “I will be right beside you.”

Just like he had been right beside her when she had finally found the strength to go back to her parents’ estate – it belonged to her now but he doubted she would ever want to live there; she loved the house but she couldn’t get over what she had witnessed there. She still had nightmares of the day her family was murdered.

Her hand slid into his, right when the train’s doors opened. The by now familiar camera crew was already on the platform, ready to capture the moment and broadcast it live but Haymitch didn’t look at them.

There were quite a few people waiting there – less than in any other District but probably more precious. He glimpsed Graesy Sae’s wrinkled eyes, some people from his childhood and…

“They’re alive!” Effie’s delighted whisper reached him right before she let go of his hand to rush to their friends. He followed, what else could he do? He accepted Aster’s hug readily enough and clasped Everdeen on the shoulder, he even lifted the toddler and couldn’t help a smile when the child laughed good heartedly.

_Katniss_ , he remembered her name was.

There was some relief in knowing Katniss would grow up without any fear of hearing her name being called at a Reaping.

It made everything worthwhile.

And all of it, all _he was_ , he owed it to the mysterious girl who had hidden from snow in his house.

His hand found Effie’s again.

He vowed to never let go.

**_ The End _ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it ends. I really enjoyed writing this story, playing with the possibility of younger Haymitch and Effie was fun. I hope you enjoyed the ride and the ending.
> 
> I want to thank Akachankami again for the beta-reading and the beautiful banners (that you can see on my tumblr).
> 
> Please let me know what you thought about it, even if it's just a line, I appreciate all feedback.
> 
> See you soon for new adventures!


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